Evening star., 1931-06-13
DIVERSIFIED FARM
POLICY IS PRAISED
Editor Tells of Benefits De-
rived in Four North
western States.
BY BRADLEY w. TRENT.
Special DISPATCH to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star
| NEW YORK, June 13.-Financiers
and business leaders gathered at the
Downtown Athletic Club, catering to
| the elite of Wall Street, listened with
rapt attention as a MidweStern apostle
of diversified farming related how good
| farming, with good live stock, is doing a
better job than any political ''hokus-
pokus" in the Great Northwest.
Bankers and brokers heard with
amazement from Charles F. Collision,
farm editor of the Minneapolis Tribune,
that diversified farming, replacing sin
gle-crop wheat, has increased the farm
revenues of the four Northwestern
States-MinneSota, the DakotaS and
Montana-nearly $70O,0O0,000 in the
last 10 years, or at the rate of almost
| S100,000,000 a year. He presented an
array of facts to prove that good farm
ing with good live stock" is a real shock
absorber for the rocky road of 1881
business and agriculture.
A New Agriculture.
Whatever radical politicians or pro-
| fessional gloom spreaderS may tell you,
the time-tried, sow-hen-sheep style
! OF farming today, such as We practice in
| the Northwest. is lar from being de-
fated or begging Uncle Sam to play
SANTA CIduS, Sdlo MI SOlIlSSOu.
When farmer and business man
really get together. new agriculture is
born. This is exactly what has hap
pened in the Northwest. Our farmers
have found out that no act of Congress
or price-fiXing schemes can ever restore
fertility to wheat-sick soils, clean up
weedy grain fields or raise sagging
wheat yields one bushel. These, and
not price, are the real wheat problems
IN the Northwest. We came to the part
ing of the ways as wheat country 10
years ago. We have chosen the cow
paths to prosperity.
Steadily, surely. this system is push
ing single-crop grain growing clear of
the map of the Northwest. Farmers are
working out their own farm relief, milk
ing their own way out of debt to pros
perIty on their own farms-not in
Washington
Minnesota since the war has cut down
her wheat growing 2,700000 acres, now
planted to potatoes and corn, hay and
feeding crops, according to Mr.. Col
lisson. Her wheat crop, in the world S
greatest -four milling State, brought
only S21 000,000 in 1929; only $12,376,-
900 in 1880. Yet Minnesota barnyard
biddies gave their owners $80,00O,OOO
worth of eggs and poultry. Minnesota
creamerieS lead all North America now
in making butter, which sells for $685.
100000 annually.
Dairy Industry Grows.
The dairy COW is now a 5000 600, 900
industry in Minnesota, 100000 900 in
the four Northwestern States. Mime
sofas butter surpasseS all the output
cf her iron mines valued at 1000, 900
a year. The NorthweSt's income from
dairy livestock and poultry products
leaped forward 81 per cent in eight
years, to the impressive total of S807,-
500 900 in 1929. This is four and one
half times the wheat crops, $178, ,500,-
900 in the four States. 1t is more than
all the field crops-everything grown
on Northwestern soils
In order to finance this development
Of livestock farming, a loaning COM
pany was formed in 1924, the Agricul-
tural Credit Corporation, to which New
York business interests and flnanciers
subscribed $5000,000 of the $4,000. 900
capital. This company lends money
direct to farmers. Up to 81 900 is pro-
vided at 6i2 per cent for a three-year
period to stock up grain farms with
sheep, dairy cattle, pure-bred bulls and
feeder cattle. Since its organization in
1924, 13,600 farmers have been aided
with loans totaling $6,78O,833. They
have repaid of this S4.474,39l out of
the actual income from the livestock.
(Copyright, 1879