The Kadoka press and Kadoka reporter. [volume] (Kadoka, S.D.) 1910-1923, 1923-05-25
Thev Dairy $3.50 With The Farme1
How One Bank Is Building The Dairy Industry OF South Dakota
With Statewide Financing Plan And Model Farm

illS uIy way IHdC IlcdIly cFcI DONy
complained about the weather, but
nothing was ever really done about
it.
. Durig the past three or four
years the farmers of the country
have found the going rather rough,
and they have done considerable
omplaining over the fate that has
been meted out to them. Rightly
or wrongly, they feel that more
than their share of the postwar
slump has been visited on them,
and they are disposed to be a trihe
sore and discouraged.
But fortunately something is be-
ing done about it. Bankers, farm
bureau officials, legislators and
business men are vying with each
other in an effort to put the farm
er back on his feet, and the latter
is bound to benefit by their gener-
Gus cooperation in the end.
Notable among the movements
to improve the position of the AM
erican farmer is that of the Sioux
Falls Trust and Savings Bank And
curiously enough, the conspicuous
work this institution is now doing
came about quite by accident, or
shall we say through theclear Wis
ion and logical reasoning of F. H.
Johnson, president of the bank.
At any rate, when Mr.. Johnson,
who was a member of the North
west Agricultural Loan Agency of
the War Finance Corporation, came
to look into the matter he found
that the majority of the applica
tions for loans came from the nor
thern part of Minnesota and North
and South Dakota, while Southern
Minnesota seemed to be able to
worry along without credit The
largest number of appeals for
loans, in other words, originated in
territory devoted to the raising of
grain, and the fewest in that por-
tion of the Northwest where dairy
ing predominated.
As Mr.. Johnson himself put it,
farmers in the dairy business had
fifty-two pay days a year instead
of two, which we have in an ordi-
nary grain and stock country. Fol
lowing this up, | made survey Of
conditions in dairy sections, princi-
pally III Wisconsin and Minnesota,
and learned that during the past
two years Of trying times, Wiscon
sin had borrowed very little money
and Southern Minnesota the same.
I'VE became fully convinced that
our farmers could not succeed by
raising twenty-cent oats and forty
cent corn (this being the aaverage
price for the past two years., and
we were looking around for place
to light, so to speak, and help put
them on the right side Of the led
ger"
While he was about the business
of gathering statistics, Mr.. johnson
decided to do q thorough job of it,
and he discovered upon further in
vestigation that South Dakota was
not in it when it comes to raising
dairy cows and producing butter.
And being a loyal South Dakotan
and very proud of the Flickertail
State, he made up his mind then
and there that it was about time
to put South Dakota on the dairy
map.
The result is that the Sioux Falls
Trust & Savings Bank has launch
!, ed out on an ambitious program Of
dairy promotion among the farm
ers of the state, with the object of
. making two pounds of butter grow
where only one grew before.
The program Of the bank is real
ly hree fold:
5 Cd Spreading the gospel of the
dairy cow among the many farm
s of South Dakota, many of whom
: have heretofore proceeded on the
complacent theory that farming
!. consists of putting in "a crop OF
wheat or oats in the spring, and
. coming back IN the fall to harvest
and thresh it, meanwhile going on
). joy-rides in the family Ford, or
sitting around town with old cron-
les and settling affairs of state.
(2) Standing ready to supply far
mers with pure-bred dairy cattle
u and selling them the stock on a
long time purchase plan.
Il 90 Illustrating the best methods
e and the value of dairying by 60
|. ino into the business itself, and re-
- s<:~ ~ ;to oxvn farms tn frRt.cla