The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1936-03-19
Conservation
Program To
Be Available
County Extension Office Will
Have List of Details To
Be Carried Out
TO PAY $7-l4 AN ACRE
Crops To Qualify Definitely
Include Alfalfa and
All The Clovers
(By County Agent Lenzmeier)


The new soils conservation pro-
gram should be Of interest to all
farmers of the county. Plans are
under way to make 1t available yet
this spring and in view of that all
producers who plan on coming in
on the program should take the
soils conservation program into
consideration in mapping out their
crop acreages for 1886. In a short
time the county extension office in
st. Cloud will have available the
various details to be carried out in
connection with the program. The
soils conservation act following the
adverse decision of the Supreme
Court on the AAA should have
come into being regardless of
whether the Supreme Court deci-
sion had been made or not. After
$50 years of cropping, some parts
of the United States already have
their soil depleted to a point where
1t Is almost beyond repair.
The new program calls for def
mite acreages of crop land to be
taken out of soil depicting crops
and to put into hay and pasture
crops, summer fallow,, or other
means of soil conservation. If for
example there is a farm of 100
acres on which there is 100 acres
of plow land and of these 100 acres
of plow land already 10 are in soil
building crops such as clover or al
falfa, it follows that there would
be 80 acres in soil depicting crops
such as wheat, corn, oats, tobacco,
etc. The remaining 60 acres of the
farm would probably be in per-
manent pasture and meadow which
are not considered as soil depicting
crops. If 10 percent of the cultivat-
ed land Is recognized as the aver
age percentage in the county that
is already in soil building crops, 1t
Is probable that the new program
will make possible payments of 81
to $14 per acre for the planting of
an additional 1918 percent of the
land in soil building crops. If, of
course, on a particular farm there
are none of these soil building
crops present, the producer put
ting them in will be paid for each
and every acre planted up to a
maximum percentage.
Crops that will qualify for soil
building crops are definitely known
to include alfalfa and all of the
clovers. The remaining crops must
still be decided on. Every farm op-
orator should already be growing
some of these crops and if pay
ment such as the soils conserva-
ton act is put into operation it
should encourage everyone to grow
a larger acreage of such crops
which should already have been
grown without any bonus pay
ments. The amount per acre that
will be received for putting in var
ious soils conservation crops will
depend a little on how many pro-
ducers take advantage of the plan.
ATS million dollars are available for
the entire country for 1896 and most
of this will go into the north CEN
trail states Of which Minnesota Is
one. Coming late as 1t does it is not
likely that for 1886 the number Of
farmers going in will be as large as
with the various AAA contracts.
Under the soils conservation act
there will be no contracts or sim
liar papers to sign. The plan calls
for small payment for these pro-
ducers who already have enough
soil building crop acreages planted
but for these folk the payments will
probably only be is to Ito as large
as to those who do not have enough
of these crops and will probably
plant them for the first time.
The soils conservation program
has various advantages over the
outlawed AAA. First of all the 1885
acreages of various crops as grown
will be the basis on which the per-
centages will be arrived at. Every
producer Is eligible. This was not
true in the case of wheat, corn.
hog, tobacco and other AAA con-
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