The Kevin review. [volume] (Kevin, Mont.) 1922-1929, 1922-12-07
FARMERS OF NORTHERN MONT ANA POINT
WAY TO PROSPERITY BY GROWING CORN

is a prosperous country whose farm
lands bring a good price. 1t is not
altogether the corn itself but the
things it brings about-the COWS, the
butter, the milk, the chickens, the
hogs follow the production of corr
Just as night follows day. Corn will
stabilize the farming business in nor
thern- Montana and make it safe. 1t
is much better for everyone to make
a living and some money every year
than to have one or two so-called big
years and then several years of fail
ure, and corn has proved itself in the
older states and wherever it has been
tried as the one crop that has fewer
failures and surer yields than any
other crop grown.
"King Corn promises much but
have an idea that he will deliver the
goods. l am sure he is a ruler who
will demand lots of work and he may
insist on breaking the union hours
but he is good pay-sure pay. He
appreciates good, honest hard work
and he will reward such work. He
is a very benevolent old king. very
old and very wise: he has been in
Just such places as ours before, and
where they have called him in and
taken his advice and done his bid
ding, he has never yet failed. He
has always brought prosperity and
he will do it for us, so let US get out
and root and cheer and work for
Old King Corn"
To the visitor who had not Travelled
extensively through the farming sec
lions of northern Montana during
the last season, the Northern Mon
tana Corn show was a great revela-
ton. Excepting the county agents
and agricultural extension workers
who have been preaching the gospel
Of corn in Montana, there were few
of the hundreds of people who visited
the big exhibition at Malta who were
not amazed at the great display Of
5000 ears of fully matured corn that
were racked for the show at Phillips
lcounty courthouse.
County Agents Have Helped
An indication of the progress that
is being made with corn in northern
Montana lies in the fact that the
acreage devoted to this crop has been
doubled in the last two years. Two
thirds of the farmers in Phillips
county are growing corn, as are half
the farmers in Roosevelt and Valley
counties and more than a quarter Of
the farmers in Blaine, Hill, Chouteau
and Daniels county.
Without the splendid cooperation
that has been taking place between
the practical farmers of these cOun-
ties who have put their faith in corn
and the agricultural extension service
of the state college, the magnificent
progress that has been achieved in
developing corr as a dependable crop
for the territory along the Canadian
line could never have been realized.
Back in 1915, Alfred Atkinson. now
president of Montana State college,
and M. l.. Wilson, now head of the
economies division of the state ex-
tension service, compiled a bulletin,
Corn in Montana" based On care
full historical Investigations and ex-
perimental work. This bulletin has
formed the basis for much of the
most important work of selection and
adaptation that has been done by the
corn and the college since
that time.
The work of intelligently develop
ing corn production in the state has
been carried on consistently by the
experiment station and the extension
service through specialists and cOun-
ty agents and some of the finest trib-
utes that have been paid the college
men and the county agents by practi-
cal farmers of the state have been
based on the work that has been &C
complished with corn.
keystone of Diversification
The conviction is general through
out the northern counties that corn
is the keystone of the great arch of
diversified farming that is now being
built up through the vast dry land
territory that stretches along the
Canadian border. The corn show at
Malta proved co~nclusively that corn
is not a G dream of the future,
nor an uncertain experiment, but is
a dependable crop that has demon
strated it's great worth to the north
ern farms-a reliable dry land feed
crop that has come triumphant out
of years of the most severe trial-the
key crop of a new agriculture.
No one who is familiar with the
situation in northern Montana ex-
poets corr to solve all the problems
of the north country. 1t will form
the basis for a new start-a sane
start with a farming system that rec
ognizes that a diversified agriculture
is the only permanent and s%ubstan-
tial agriculture for any country. 1t
will provide a dependable feed crop
that will bring more livestock and
greater diversity, and that will mean
less gambling with the n crop sys-
tenn. Corn does not lend itself to
bonanza methods of farming. The
efficient distribution of farm labor,
rotation of crops, weed control soil
tillage, moisture conservation, fer
tility conservation and livestock pro-
duction should all be facilitated by
corn production in northern Mon