Last 



AFTER THE TOOH A PICNIC DINNER 

 lohn Hannah, Henry county, president oi the Account Keepers Association, reading 

 Utter. Farm adviser A. R. Kemp, oi Knox county, right, looks on. 



are bred for spring litters usually than 

 for fall. 



One hired man nine months a year, a 

 little extra help in harvesting and haying 

 and tractor equipment make for econom- 

 ical operations on this farm. 



Does it pay to keep beef breeding cows 

 on high-priced corn-belt farms? 



It does, according to M. L. Mosher, 

 chief of farm management extension in 

 Illinois, when you feed them on corn 

 stalks, straw, and roughage that other- 

 wise would go to waste. This is exactly 

 what is done on the Matthews farm. 



It doesn't pay, Mr. Mosher holds, 

 when you have to feed the cows hay and 

 grain at going prices. 



The 30 beef cows here are wintered 

 mostly on corn stalks. In March and 

 April this year they had nothing but 

 straw and a little soybean hay. They get 

 no grain, no silage, and very little hay, 

 yet they produce strong, healthy calves. 

 The calves have a creep where they can 

 get grain from a self-feeder mounted on 

 wheels for easy transfer from one field 

 to another. 



Northwest of Galesburg on the 298 

 acre farm of T. J. Sullivan and Son, 

 the farm management tourists saw an- 

 other illustration of good farming with 

 beef cattle and hogs on rolling land. 

 Yields of 75 bu. of corn per acre, 77 bu. 

 of oats, and 25 bu. of soybeans told part 

 of the story of success here. Earnings 

 were well above the average of the 400 

 account-keeping farms last year chiefly 

 because of the record on hogs ($139 

 return for $100 feed fed) and other live- 

 stock. 



John Sullivan, the junior partner, told 

 his audience that the beef herd and their 

 cattle feeding operations were largely re- 

 sfjonsible for building up the fertility of 

 the farm. Much of the rolling land is 

 in blue grass. 



Two litters a year from 12 to 14 sows 



(Hampshire sows bred to Poland China 

 boar), raising the pigs on worm-free, 

 rotated alfalfa pasture with individual 

 houses for shelter, is the system followed 

 on the Sullivan farm. There are no 

 floors in the portable houses. Shoats are 

 marketed at from six to seven months 

 old. The spring pigs are born in March 

 and April or later, the fall pigs usually in 

 October. Tankage, ground alfalfa and 

 soybean oilmeal, with corn are the princi- 

 pal hog feeds. 



The beef cows rough it in winter con- 

 suming corn stalk leaves, weeds, soybean 

 straw and other roughages that otherwise 

 would go to waste. The Sullivans also 

 had a flock of 66 lb. range lambs on 

 clover pasture that later will go into the 

 corn field for fattening. 



In the afternoon session, Dr. F. C. 

 Bauer, soils extension specialist with the 

 state college, vividly decribed crop pro- 

 duction as "merchandising plant food." 

 He cast up some figures on soil depletion 

 that make you wonder if our rich farms 

 some day will be like the worn-out areas 

 in the middle Atlantic states. Depletion 

 of soil fertility goes on continually, he 

 said, through crop production and soil 

 erosion. A ton of corn for example, takes 

 out of the soil approximately 51 lbs. of 

 phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and mag- 

 nesium. A ton of oats takes out 60 lbs. 

 of these minerals, a ton of wheat 65 lbs., 

 a ton of soybeans 62 lbs. Legume hays 

 require large quantities of minerals and 

 where hay is sold, the soil is rapidly de- 

 pleted of minerals. In a ton of red 

 clover there are 118 lbs. of minerals, in 

 a ton of alfalfa 140 lbs. 



Excessive plowing, he pointed out, re- 

 duces fertility. When straw is plowed 

 under, the next year's corn yield will be 

 cut, but the second year, the yield will 

 be better, Bauer said. When green sweet 

 clover and straw are turned under to- 

 gether, however, there is a substantial 

 increase in corn yield the first year. 



The Farm Bureau-Farm Management 

 project in Illinois is approxinutely 14 

 years old. M. L. Mosher, farm adviser 

 in Woodford county in the early '20s, 

 was one of the first men in the field to 

 see the importance of records and com- 

 parative analysis in studying farming as 

 a business. The late Walter Handschin, 

 chief of the old department of farm 

 management at the University of Illinois, 

 early set the course for others to follow. 

 His pioneering put Illinois in the lead in 

 farm management studies. 



Mosher's passion for facts and truth 

 about better farming methods, led him to 

 accept an opportunity to devote all his 

 time to this fundamental work as a mem- 

 ber of the state college extension staff 

 after Handschin passed on. With Mosher 

 from Woodford county went his studious 

 assistant, Paul Johnston, now a member 

 of the University's agricultural economics 

 staff under Prof. H. C M. Case. This 

 year Prof. Mosher, grown gray in the 

 service of better farming is completing 

 his 33rd year in extension work. 



Mosher's method has been to work 

 with a comparatively small group of 

 farmers and through them show results 

 that all, who take the pains, can apply to 

 their own farms. Thus the early develop- 

 ment of Woodford County Krug com 

 from which some of Illinois' best hybrids 

 have been developed, was one of 

 Mosher's outstanding accomplishments. 



Today in the Farm Bureau-Farm Man- 

 agement project in Illinois, business 

 records and comparative analyses are 

 helping 650 of the state's best farm 

 operators to uncover the strong and weak 

 p>oints of their business. The records are 

 furnishing a )rardstick available to all 

 revealing farming as an intensely inter- 

 esting business requiring the application 

 of sound business principles, as well as 

 a fine way of life. — Editor. 



Winter barley is attracdng the at- 

 tention of farmers in southwestern Illi- 

 nois. It is replacing oats in the rotations 

 on many farms. A combination of 

 winter barley and lespedeza is being 

 used as year 'round pasture. 



The Federal Department of Public Health, 

 after complete investigation, announces that 

 there is nothing in their findings to suggest 

 that the lead tolerance of .025 grains per 

 pound as promulgated by the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture is sufficient to endanger 

 the health of the consumer. As a result 

 the Secretary of Agriculture announces that 

 the lead allowance is to be changed to .025 

 grains per pound instead of 0.18 as here- 

 tofore. The tolerance for arsenic and fluorine 

 has not been changed. This change will 

 be valuable and helpful to Illinois apple 

 growers in 1939. 



Farm account keepers say, "Farm accounts 

 have more value the longer they are kept." 



NOVEMBER, 1938 



