54 



DRY FARMING CONGRESS 



two thousand acres under cultivation, and we expect, during the next year, 

 to double that amount. 



MR MADSEN (Provo, Utah) : How do you manage to get the brush 

 out of the way? 



MR. MERRILL: President Paxman explained our difficulties pretty 

 thoroughly this afternoon. The first year we operated we cleared about 

 five hundred acres very successfully with simply a V-shaped device with 

 long knives. It is very similar to the Bates grubber, that has not been 

 entirely successful. Last year we made contracts with men to clear the 

 prairie with the Alboid grubber. That is simply a device with two rows 

 of teeth, with one row of teeth in the ground, and when that gets full, 

 drop it, and the other flops over. It is pulled by six horses. They can 

 clear about 16 or 18 acres a day, putting the brush in the winrows. Most 

 of our ground has been cleared by contract, we simply giving the contract 

 for clearing at two dollars an acre, and the men say they make very good 

 wages at that rate. The year before we paid $1.60 for the work, and the 

 same man said he didn't make anything. I imagine that the cost of labor 

 to clear is about $2.00 an acre. 



MR. BENNION (Utah): I would like to ask the gentleman if on a 

 part of the land there is not brush enough to justify grubbing. 



MR. MERRILL: We haven't had any on our farm but what has 

 sufficient brush to warrant clearing. We clear the whole field. We 

 haven't any patches that haven't brush. 



MR. PARKINSON (Idaho): I would like to ask whether or not 

 this land that was plowed for fifty cents per acre was stubble land. 



MR. MERRILL: The land I speak of was all stubble land. The cost 

 of plowing stubble land was fifty cents an acre. I think the gross cost 

 would be somewhat increased. Of course, that would depend upon the 

 thoroughness with which the ground had been cleared. I failed to 

 emphasize the point that where you have expensive machinery it justi- 

 fies working for all it is worth while it is in operation. We got two 

 capable engineers. We paid them their own salary. In fact, we didn't 

 ask them what the salary was. We paid two engineers to do the work, 

 simply because we knew that if they did make it work it would be less 

 expensive to us, and I want to say here that I believe that is one great 

 fault with a great many of us — that we depend upon some cheap man to 

 run the engine, and we get a man who has had no experience with ma- 

 chinery, who can't take an engine and make it work. Some of us made 

 the mistake of employing a locomotive engineer, who has been accus- 

 tomed, whenever anything is wrong with his engine, to running the engine 

 to the shop and getting it fixed up, and as soon as anything is out of 

 repair with the engine they are at a loss, and consequently have to go 

 up town, sometimes many miles away, to get the engine in repair. The 

 great need of the arid farming region of this industry today is to get 

 men who are preparing themselves to take care of traction engines — men 

 of dry farming experience and good judgment and men of reliability, who 

 are willing to go out and win success. I believe we have made our sue- 



