268 



THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



and knew they were right. It was all new to me in this climate where 

 the soil conditions were so much different from Iowa and Nebraska. 



" 'But I - succeeded. It was a surprise to all who saw the crop at 

 time of harvesting and threshing. We threshed flax, wheat, oats, 

 speltz, buckwheat and millet seed, and this all on new sod. Together 

 with the small grains I experimented with many varieties of farm prod- 

 ucts with all of which I am credited with having produced good results. 



Diversified Cropping. 



Among these were four varieties of corn, besides popcorn and broom 

 corn. Six varieties of potatoes, amber cane, kaffir corn, many varieties 

 of pumpkins, squash, melons,, muskmelons, turnips, beets, and so on 

 down the line until with grasses, clover and alfalfa we had in all about 

 fifty-six varieties comprising the sod crop. 



" 'I will endeavor as briefly as possible to give you my opinion of 

 the growth and condition of this crop along through the season and at 

 maturity. Understand the ground had to be broken before it could be 

 planted and therefore some of it necessarily had to be put in later than 

 would have been the case had the ground been broken and ready for 

 the crop. 



Soil Treatment. 



" 'The first breaking was done as early as possible and this was 

 for potatoes. This was broken as shallow as possible in order to split 

 the buffalo sod which then rots very fast. Every evening after the 

 day's breaking the disk was put on and the land was pulverized down 

 smooth. 



" 'In this way we prevented the soil from drying out and pre- 

 served the moisture. The turf handles much better when the soil is 

 moist and freshly broken. After the potato ground was thoroughly 

 disked we started in breaking for small grain and flax and in pre- 

 paring this we disked it until we had a seed bed in shape for the disk 

 drill which I consider by far the best method of putting in seed. 



Potatoes. 



" 'After putting in the small grain we were ready for the potatoes 

 and garden. We used the Good Enough Riding Breaker again on the 

 potato ground, which we had broken and disked two weeks before, but 

 this second time we put the plow down five to six inches so when com- 

 pleted the sod all turned under and we had fine ground to work. This 

 we disked until we had a fine seed bed thoroughly pulverized. We 

 then took the same plow and furrowed for the potatoes making the 

 rows three and a half feet apart. We then dropped the potato seed 

 about two feet apart and covered it with the harrow" and 

 we continued harrowing this every few days until the young potatoes 

 were four to six inches high. After this we used the disk cultivator 

 and the result was that we raised a good crop of Tubers. 



