96 CKOP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



make a change for the better, while the innate conservatism of the Southern 

 farmer holds him longer in the old ruts than his Northern competitor. The 

 great decrease in the wheat crop on the plains of Dakota showed plainly that 

 the wheat growers there were, as we have said, straight on the road to "old 

 fields" as those of the South have long been. Bat of late, the farmers of 

 Dakota are realizing their error, and are going into cattle. They can do this 

 all the more profitably now that the sheep have driven the cattle from the 

 great ranges of Colorado, Utah and other sections where cattle formerly 

 were raised in immense numbers. These great ranges of public land no 

 longer carry their herds of cattle, for sheep have gotten possession ; the cattle 

 of the future will not be raised on the free ranges, but on the lands belonging 

 to the farmer, and the cattle feeding of the Eastern States will once more 

 become profitable. The Dakota wheat growers are wise enough to see the 

 error of their one-cropping, and to take advantage of the changed conditions 

 in the cattle industry. Having taken this step before the "old fields" were 

 present in all their hideous barrenness, the Dakota farmer will have the great 

 advantage of his Southern brother in the unexhausted condition of his soil 

 and its capacity for the production of grass. But if the farmers in a section 

 where cattle must be housed and fed for nine months and where great storage 

 must be made of winter feed, can produce beef cattle at a profit, what should 

 the farmers of sections which can produce the finest of forage plants in the 

 greatest abundance and where the cattle can roam in the fields nearly every 

 day in the year, do? We cannot too often insist that there can be no real 

 prosperity on the farm, no real home making and nowhere near the profit in 

 farming, with one crop, and selling that in the raw state. The growing of 

 forage crops and the keeping of live stock lies at the very foundation of all 

 rational methods of soil improvement and the maintenance of the fertility 

 of our acres. The farmer who transforms some of his raw products into a 

 more finished product always realizes a larger price for his product than the 

 man who constantly sells only the raw product. Some years ago the writer 

 made a visit to Nebraska for the purpose of studying the growth and manu- 

 facture of beet sugar as practiced there. We were struck with the beauty of 

 the wide spread of corn fields, and took occasion to talk with the farmers not 

 only about their beet growing, but in regard to other crops. Asking one Ger- 

 man farmer what corn was worth per bushel, he replied that he believed it was 

 about 20 to 25 cents, but that he did not sell corn as some of his neighbors 

 did. His corn went into hogs and they carried themselves to the depot, and 

 he got 50 cents a bushel for his corn and had the manure left, though he 

 seemed to care little for that, for like most farmers on the new prairies, he 

 thought the soil inexhaustible, like those further east who are now buying 



