The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 29, 1917, Page 10

Fun and Profit in Club Contests (By Homer Dixon) HAT great national movemerit, ' boys’ and girls’ club work, has again been brought to our at- @..J)] tention by the leaders in the work and the fact that the growing season Is fast approaching. The state extension divisions are en- deavoring to make this year a banner one in this work, and so have arranged very attractive premium lists in most of the various lines of the contest. In Minnesota a new project has been added in the land clearing contest, where each contestant is required to clear -an acre of land and grow a crop upon it. Another comparatively recent feature of the boys’ and girls’ work in this section, is found in the introduc- tion of the cow testing contest. . There is no doubt but that this fea- ture of the extension departments is meeting with very great success, as is witnessed by the high yield in the various contests. The practical value of thesé contests to our boys and girls cannot be estimated, for it can not be measured by the net returns from their produce and the prizes they win. They are investing heavily in experi- ence and their greatest income from this investment will be realized when they obtain farms of their own and be- come our “farmers of tomorrow.” BOYS AND GIRLS DISCOVER BETTER WAYS OF FARMING If the above is true then surely the work is worth while and’should re- ceive the unanimous- support of our farming population. In fact, not only the success of the work, but the work itself depends upon our farmers of tn- day. Much is being said about pre- paredness. What could be better or stronger protection than to have the boys and girls, our ‘“farmerd of the ___ future? wei>-versed in the science and technique of the industry, agriculture? Children are naturally inquisitive, and constantly searching for reasons why. If they have a club project to work upon, they will ferret' out new systems and new ways of doing things. We will work hardest at ~that thing in which ‘we are interested. An instance of this was found in our work last fall when one of our corn club boys experienced ‘trouble in get- ting his younger brother to cross the strings just right while he was string- . ing up his seed corn. In searching for -stringer. Testing the seed for the corn contest. a remedy this ' boy invented a corn He made a little machine which crossed and recrossed the strings for him very successfully. It has a shuttle which slides back and forth, and his little brother found no difficulty in working this machine, so that the corn stringing proceeded more.- easily than before. Now the value of this little incident is, not so much in the invention, as it is in the fact that this boy did some independent thinking. It shows that he was interested in his work, and de- termined not to let little difficulties baffle him. By overcoming, this diffi- culty, he became a master of the situ- ation and was better prepared to meet the. next problem which confronted him. IT MEANS MORE THAN USE OF THE GROUND ‘We often find in our work that the parents are loath to allow the boy the use of a plot of ground, expressing the’ sentiment that the work is all a waste of time and energy. A little encour- agement when tHe boy or girl shows a desire to enter these contests, might give us another little inventor or another better farmer of tomorrow, in- stead of the discontented boy and girl, searching for employment and pleasure One boy winner and a prize bushel of corn. > fn the city. Why not father and son working together for better yields, pure seed, purebred cattle, etc? Anything that will fix higher ideals or ambitions in the minds of our boys and girls, is well worth while. It is not How Boys and Girls Are Even Teaching Their Elders New Things so much, the fact that the boy and girl discover the good points of live- stock, grain, etc,, that is important, but more so the fact that these things arouse an ambition in the youth to be- come a producer of first class, prize winning stuff. The contests impress upon them the essentials of production, and their display at the local fair or industrial contest, show them where they stand in relation to their neigh- bors. Through taking a part in the fair they are brought to "understand that the essential features of our fairs are not the side shows, merry-go- round and fakirs. . : Don't wait for the boys’ and girls’ club work to come to your community. Go and bring it. Encourage the young- sters to take part. In order’ that they may take a greater interest in the work. Start them-out as early in life as possible. Ten years of age is the lower age limit. And finally, when the whole subject of boys’ and girls’ work is analyzed, we find that back of it all lie the fundamental principles of business and life. In this work they meet the great- er problems of life in a <ifferent form, and are well informed along the line of those broader subjects, the knowl- edge of which makes our life so well worth living. Grade Wheat Before S'owing Get Your Fanning Mill in Operation, Advises Bolley BY.H:# 1 BOLLEY--2'% (State Seed Commissioner and Member of Faculty of N. D. Agri. College.) . - OUui. representative has asked me to write something regard- ing the seed wheat situation. Much might be said. I think, however, mnothing more im- portant can be done than that each farmer should immediately examine into the quality of seed which he in- tends to put into the ground. Do not wait. If it is light weight and is of bad color, that is, looks dead and gray, test it carefully on some clean blotting paper in a covered pie plate, soup dish, or other deep dish. Use 100 seeds. Lay them on top of a blotter paper, and saturate the paper with water. Then lay another blotting paper on top also saturated. Set in a warm room. In three or four days you should not only have the germina- tion, but will be ‘able to tell whether the seeds mold or show signs of weak- ness. : Assuming that practically everybody is going to test their light weight seed before they put it into the ground, the next and most important advice one can give is that all seed should be graded to the plumpest, heaviest stuff before it is sowed. Do not sow the light weight wheat too thick. If the seeds fall too thickly-in the row the plants can not stool or head well. If the seed wheat is of light weight, bet- ter care should be taken to have a fine, well-compacted seed bed. ADVICE ABOUT GRADING There are .some samples which are 80 badly ghrivelled that any amount of grading will not greatly improve them. There are others which would be very greatly improved if graded to remove .the lightest weight one-half to two- thirds, saving the remaining best heavy weight one 'half or one third. There are comparatively few samples which can not be graded so that the weight will be increased four or five pounds per bushel. One can almost tell whether wheat willl germinate or not by looking at the color of it. If the light weight wheat was allowed to stay unharvested or in the shock a long time after mature, it is apt to be of gray, moldy character. If, however, it 'was harvested and threshed dry, it is apt to have a normal wheat color. You know what good red Fife looks like when it is plump. The rust-shrivelled stuff should have the same color even though it is shrivelled unless it is in- jured in some other way. This is the best year possible to get rid of the excess wheats or common spring wheats which are in the Durum: In most western samplés outside of the valley the Durum wheat was not shrivelled as badly as the Fife and Blue TEN Stem and Marquis which grew as volunteer grain in the crop. Now is the time to get out this spring wheat which spoils the character of the Durum for sale on the market. Farmers should understand that Durum wheat * which contains more than 5 per cent of ! spring wheat of the bread type is al- most spoiled for the best quality of Semolina, the meal from which maca- roni, spaghetti and noodles are made. DO NOT PUT IT OFF -~ Get your fanning mill into operation —do it now. Do not wait until it is time to sow. If you do not have suffi- cient screens of the proper size, get them. Any large hardware firm can furnish you screens of any number of meshes per inch. 1915 Durum. wheat of plump form cap also be freed from a large part of thé€ spring wheats that are in it. If the Durum is really plump and of normal shape, you need a screen with about 5 or 6 meshes to the inch. If it is less plump form, you will need more meshes per inch according to cir- cumstances. ¢ After cleaning your Durum wheat to get the bread wheats out of it, don't sow it cn a field where you had bread wheat last year. There will more than likely be a lot of volunteer stuff come into it. Do not sow poor, moldy wheat on any clean, properly summer fallow- ed or properly rotated land. Wheat which shows a lot of moldy seeds in the germinator, particularly the pink molds, is poor stuff to use for seed. These moldy seeds are generally the scab producers. 5 LA After you have cleaned up the land by proper rotation don’t spoil it by sowing bad seed on it again if you can help it. Sl o e B e A 2 INDUSTRIES DEPENDING ON FLAX Many big industries depend on flax. On the fibre side is the whole great linen industry from threads to the fin- est laces; linen cloths of all kinds, canvasses, tapestries, damasks, warps, bagging, rugs, velvets, velvetines, fine rope, heayy cordage, twines, building boards, insulating material, etc. While on the linseed oil depends many of the most important of the building and manufacturing - industries as paints, varnishes, printer’s ink, leather, finish- es, .0il cloth, linoleums, etc. With so many industries dependent on flax & good market is assured. Flax has been a new land crop hav- ing travelled from New England to North Dakota and it will soon leave North Dakota unless it is grown on old land. Professor Bolley claims that this can be done by using wilt resistant seed, by selecting, caring for, cleaning and treating the seed and not growing the flax on the same field oftener than every five or six years.—Ex. Dept. N, D. Agri. College. > 3 Y