The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1925-06-26
SEEING OURSELVES AS THE EAST
SEES US FOLLOWING VISIT OF
COOLIDGE TO MORSE CELEBRATION

ucts of the soil The attention given
to wheat growing was the dangerous
preoccupation, such as a gambler be-
slows upon game of chance on
which he has staked his shirt.
Non-Farmers Look to Farming
"The wheat farmer-of the type
which contributed heavily to the
Northwest's recent difficulties--led
an easy life. He worked about 100
days year and nature did the rest;
planting in the fall or spring
Yielded a harvest the ensuing sum-
mer. That is about all there need be
to wheat farming in any of our west
ern or mid western country as long
as the soil is new and there is ade-
uuate rainfall. The native qualities
of that soil are so favorable to wheat
that the grain can be produced al
most without cultivation while the
land continues young and strong and
the moisture is right. Enormous
yields have been produced in Mon
tana and the Dakotas without re-
plowing--merely disking the seed
grain in among the old stubble.
| East of that one hundredth meri-
dian which bisects the Dakotas longi-
| tudinally a proper rainfall usually
may be counted on. Consequently,
| the soil will stand more punishment
than west of that meridian, where
the rainfall progressively diminishes
until the divide is reached. There
special methods must be pursued and
hundred-d day wheat cropping becomes
speculative proposition. But special
| ~ dc Of IN hi
section until after the crash of 1920
The result is that hard times reached
catastrophe proportions west Of the
middle Dakotas.
"One has heard much about Mon.
tana in that connection. The wheat
land boom in Montana began about
1912. 1t was found that wheat would
grow there in favorable years just
as it once grew on the plains to the
astward-almost Of it's own init
ative. There was great advertising
campaign for homesteaders, anc
homesteaders came by thousands. Not
more than half of them were ordinary
farmers by occupation, and light soil
dry farmers were rarer than that
In an official survey by callings OF
the inhabitants of the bench country
one finds in one township cobblers
bookkeepers, actresses, school teach
ers, Y. NJ. G.. A. secretaries, dentists
motormen, soda water dispensers
not pursuing their regular vocations
but farming, or, perhaps l should say
, growing wheat. They we're making
money. too, because from 1912 tt
1916 there was phenomenal rain
fall in that western section, and the
wheat yields were astonishing.
"People thought this would las
forever. They even thought the rain
fall would last. The story one hear.
, in so many new countries was repeat
, ed and believed, that the breaking
, and cultivation of the native SOC
: works a permanent increase in tn,
:. precipitation. Government weathe
: records fail to support this conten
ton. But this and many other thing
f were lost sight of in the heyday o
f the Montana boom. Land values soar
, ed. Everybody had money. Credi
| was to free. Overexpansion followed
The Soil Rebelled
4 "Then descended three crop fail
e ures in row-1917, 1918 and 1918
). The previously ample rainfall drop
4 ped off and the To-day farmin,
r methods in vogue were not equal t.
: the situation. The country was in
: desperate fix. Banks had to len
d more money after each failure to en-
. able the farmers to put in anothe
o crop in the hope that the proceed
/. would cover earlier as we'll as curren
t loans. The crop of 1920 also failec
G Thousands of settlers left, and on
bank in every three in Montan
# failed.
Q extend that situation in modifie
e form over the Dakotas and Minnesot
= and one can vision the elementals Q
Q what happened in the Northwest. !
$ North Dakota there was no sudde
it collapse. All of the older localitie
IS had reserves to fall back upon.
e Because of ruinous farming metf
DDS, wheat yields had been declinin
h for years in North Dakota. Farm
( were without cattle or dairy stock
e. without anything except wheat, tn
Is money crop. Farmers did not eve
t. produce their own butter and me:
ID or work vegetable gardens. Trims
like that mean labor-not for thre
,e months year, but for twelve. The
at grew wheat, sold it and bought sue
dI 'SS"i" 40 SS6o ohu pOtotVCop WIKI
o. many a city suburbanite produces Fl
e. his own use on a plot of back var
These farmers had thousands of acr
o. apiece, some of Them But they we
We wheat farmers. They would not ev,
h. let their women folks milk cows al
IL feed hogs. That was not a whe
H. farmers work-or his wife's.
" "The soil rebelled against abus
at Yields fell off and profits fell Of
. The farmer felt there was somethi
at wrong with the wheat marketing sy
lis tenn. There was. Commission m
op got big profits to which they we
it. not entitled, in the opinion of I
mt land owners. One thing led to q
zee other until the farmers in North
kota set out to adjust these econon
th shortcomings by political scti,
at They went much further than tn
m politically irregular brethren ell
ID where notably in Minnesota, Sou
49,