68 



CLAY COUNTY ILLUSTRATED 



The John Corneliussen Farmstead, Kurtz Township 



admitting sunlight to every part, and 

 the interior showing the convenient 

 arrangement of the pens. The house 

 is 120x24, has cement floors through- 

 out and is equipped with a heating sys- 

 tem. Another illustration shows the 

 800-pound hoar with Mr. Valan kneel- 

 ing behind. Many of the Valan strain 

 of Duroc-Jerseys are the sires and 

 dams of other herds in Minnesota and 

 North Dakota. 



Mr. Valan is one of the busiest men 

 in Clay County, and is always ready 

 to go to the bottom of anything per- 

 taining to the farm. He is vice-presi- 

 dent of the Clay County Farm Bureau 

 and president of the Rustad Farmers' 

 Elevator & Trading Company. 



John Corneliussen is making a spe- 

 cialty of raising seed grain and other 

 seed on his Red River farm of 287 acres 

 in Kurtz township. He has won nu- 

 merous prizes on his seed and expects 

 to win many more. In 1915 he had a 

 13-acre piece of wheat that yielded 636 

 bushels — a shade under 49 to the acre. 

 This patch yielded over 40 bushels of 



barley each of the two preceding years. 

 Mr. Corneliussen raises Marquis and 

 Velvet Chaff wheat, and the average 

 from 132 acres was 25 bushels. Swe- 

 dish Select oats gave 70 bushels ma- 

 chine measure. Last year, while some 

 seed was saved, most of the corn went 

 into the silo. Potatoes, clover and bar- 

 ley are regular crops, and a six-acre 

 plot was seeded to alfalfa last spring 

 with the barley. 



Mr. Corneliussen came to Moorhead 

 33 years ago and has lived in this vi- 

 cinity ever since. In 1892 he began 

 farming on his own account. He paid 

 $37.00 an acre for the land and esti- 

 mates the cost of improvements made 

 since to be about $40.00 per acre. The 

 buildings are shown in the illustration. 

 Modern improvements in the house in- 

 clude hot water heat, gas lighting 

 plant, bath room supplied by a pressure 

 tank and sewer outlet to the river. 



Since the formation of the consoli- 

 dated school district at Rustad Mr. 

 Corneliussen has been its clerk. It is 

 only three miles from the farm to Rus- 

 tad and seven miles to Moorhead. 



Frank T. Schroeder's Home Farm, Glyndon Township 



