Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1920-05-14
STEVENS COUNTY HAS
THE CHAMPION SOIL"
In the Midst of the Black Earth Belt
Which is the champion Soil
of America"

taL Dlack SOIL VIII "u1Cu we d1S ~
familiar, is limited in extent, not on
Iy in the United State but in the
world, and for that reason The Tri-
bune commends the reading of the
article on "Americas Champion
Soil' by John r. Mcmahon in The
Country Gentleman for April 3.
Here are a few quotations from the
article:-
1T is hard for anyone, especially an
Fastener, who has once seen the
black-dirt empire of the prairie and
plains to speak or think of it with
out enthusiasm or even rank elulogy
Years ago when there was less travel
the Western Homers who twanged
the Tyre regarding the heroic size of
their hogs and sunflowers were re-
garded by Fasteners as plain liars.
There are plenty Of Fasteners today
who are half skeptical about Natures
prodigal bounty in the West. You
simply have to see it in order to be-
lieve it and, still more, to comprehend
it. There is no use talking, our agri-
cultural center and the immediate
power house of the world is located
not far around the geographical cent
ter of the United States. This could
be argued and proved in detail. If
this core were cut out of America all
the fringe of big cities and great in
dustries would shrivel to nothing. If
the fringe were cut off the core would
lose nothing vital or irreplaceable.
The club that swatted the world and
is yet held aloft was shaped on a
Middle-Wes farm. And the soil
made possible the shaping of that
club
mot mere rhetoric and not just
statistical fact is the statement afore-
said. You can see with the eye, here
and abroad. the striking difference
between fat land and lean land and
all the products thereof, including
people. Stalwart, stout folks are gen
orally bred and fed on rich land,
while lean, pale ones belong on the
soil that matches their complexion.
when Horace Greedy said: "Go
West, young mani" he uttered
mouthfuI of lucrative wisdom though
most of his readers thought it was
another piece of newspaper talk. I'm
fortunately Horace did not realize
his advice with a soil map showing
the lay of the fat lands, in con-
sequence of which some blundered
into the oil fields of Ohio and others
went so far that they reaped for
tunes out of gold mines.
According to the latest data Of
science the bonanza territory of the
Central West is divided into three
parts. This trio together comprises
the best soil in the United States.
1t tops the list of all our soils ar
ranged in the order of natural fer
tility without reference to tOpO-
graphy, climate or ease of cultiva
ton. At one end the growing sea-
son may be too short, at the other
end the bugs may be too thick, else
where there may be market or labor
troubles, but these drawbacks are
aside from the question. Of the three
areas the two best lie east and west
with the third member .sandwiched
between.
''There is first the dark or blackish
earth that you begin to see in Ohio
in spots and patches. This increases
in Indiana until it becomes an I'M
broken belt that sweeps over the
whole of Northern Illinois and into
the southeast corner of Iowa. 1t is
wet or moist loan soil which often
needs artificial drainage.
Next there is the larger area of
dark, well-drained soils with more or
less lime content. This takes in the
rest of Iowa, Northern Missouri, the
western three-fourths Of Minnesota,
easterly parts of the Dakotas, Ne
braska, Kansas and Oklahoma, and a
strip through Texas to the Gulf of
Mexico. Though it is all the same
ground, it grows lemons and cotton
at one end, wheat at the other end
and corn in between.
"The. last member of the black
triumvirate adjoins the last described
on the westerly side, extends sim
ilarly from the Canada border to the
Gulf Coast region, cuts a little deeper
than it's eastern neighbor into the
Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Okla
hOma and Texas. It constitutes a
strip of fairly uniform width al
though the extreme range between
about seventy-f1ve miles in Texas and
Oklahoma up to maximum width
toward 300 miles in North Dakota at
the Canada border. Taken altogether
the shape of this trio of soils on the
map is like that of toe dancers
foot, the ankle up north composed OF
Minnesota and the Dakotas, the heel
projecting east into Indiana, the
Strengthened and narrowing inster
pointing south and the toes sort OF
weighing in the waters of the Mexi,
can Gulf.
'The black earth Of our prairies
and plains, Jumping together afiliat.
ed shades and sorts of ground, is con,