Campbell's 1902 Soil Culture Manual. 



9 



THE FOMEROY MODEL FARM. 



ITS MISSION. 



_ The Pomeroy Model Farm was established at Hill City, in Graham 

 County, Kansas, in March, 1900, for the sole purpose of demonstrating 

 what might be accomplished in a section of the Semi-Arid Belt under the 

 so-called " Campbell Method of Soil Culture." For three or four years 

 considerable effort had been made by the railroads in the Dakotas, Ne- 

 braska, and Kansas to encourage better cultivation along their lines by 

 •establishing what was then called Experimental Farms. Arrangements 

 were made with individual farmers in various localities, sixteen in all, in 

 1896, and upwards of forty in 1897, a much less number in 1898, and in 

 the fall of that year we refused to proceed further *on this plan, as a 

 general supervision of all this work was left to us. From the work 

 done a fair amount of good results were secured so far as the public 

 at large were concerned; but, personally, we obtained much valuable 

 information and made a great deal of progress in our discoveries in soil 

 culture. 



In the first place it seemed entirely out of the question with our oc- 

 casional visits for the average operator of these experimental farms to 

 grasp the principles and rules of the system. It was not uncommon for 

 us to find the man in charge very busy with his own private work, conse- 

 quently his mind and attention were not given to the necessary points in 

 the work on the experimental plat. He was ia a hurry, and sometimes 

 seemed a little anxious for us to move on. 



In the next place, there w^as an expectation of too much from the first 

 year's cultivation. While the great amount of work done created general 

 interest, and considerable curiosity as to what might result from it, the 

 special interest was not what it would have been had the work been more 

 thorough and confined to a less number of stations. 



At the Pomeroy Model Farm no other kind of work has been at- 

 tempted est ept to grow crops, trees, shrubbery, and orchards under the 

 Campbell method, and due attention has been given to the proper prepara- 

 tion of the soil, and the storing and conserving in the soil the natural rain- 

 fall. One of the important discoveries we are now making and are working 

 out, and happily with great satisfaction and remarkable results, is the effect 

 and value of summer cultivation, which aids so materially to store and con- 

 serve the rain waters during the entire season, preparing the seed bed for 

 the sowing of grain in the fall or planting in the following spring. So far, 

 ot ly winter wheat has been grown on soil thus treated, and the yield ob- 

 tained in 1901 was fully three hundred per cent, more than the yield of 



