260 



THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



"There are two classes of settlers. Those who are naturally brainy 

 and eager for information— this class succeeds anywhere. The other 

 class are those who want to farm like their grandfathers did back 

 east, — these are hard to convert, but I find that if you can once get 

 them started to plowing deep, the rest comes easy. 



implements. 



"One of them was farming a year or two ago with a sulky plow 

 and two horses, plowing about six inches and raising about ten to 

 fifteen bushels of oats to the acre. One year when he was rather dis- 

 gusted with the outlook I persuaded him to drop the sulky and hitch 

 onto a hand plow and plow nine inches, which he did. The result was 

 thirty bushels. Now he comes around all the time to get pointers, and 

 has set out an orchard which is doing w^ell. 



Diversified Cropping. 



"I believe however most thoroughly in combination, or mixed 

 farming. Even on 160 acres a man can feed his own stuff to stock and 

 it certainly pays better to do this than to let some other man feed it. 

 And even a poor farmer can feed his stunted and immature crops to 

 cattle and make his food and clothes out of it. 



Dry Land OrcFiard. 



"I will now explain my dry orchard business, which has proved 

 very profitable, and the principles involved. 



"To make an exact science of this branch of dry farming, you take 

 no risks whatever by getting your moisture first, before planting your 

 trees, and then by bottling in the sub-soil more than the trees can use 

 up, you render your orchard absolutely drouth proof. 



Soil Preparation. 



"I started by planting a small family orchard in 1886-7. I fallowed 

 the ground after plowing a foot deep, dug the holes in the dead fur- 

 Depth of Moisture. 



rows to fill up with snow during the winter and secured about three 

 to four feet of moisture from the surface down before planting a tree. 

 I would cultivate about ten or twelve times during the summer after 

 all the heavy rains, and even in winter after a thaw, when I had a 

 chance to bottle a good snow. We soon had all the small fruits we 

 wanted and apples began to appear on the trees. 



Conservation of Moisture. 



"By cultivation the moisture kept gaining and by 1895 this little 

 orchard contained twelve feet of moisture from the surface down. I 

 was getting more moisture than the trees could use up. This fact 

 alone demonstrated at once that the moisture question was forever 

 solved as regarded trees. 



