The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, July 26, 1917, Page 8

R TET, T PO Begin Tiling in North Dakota Tired of Thirty Years’ Delay, Individual Farmers Try Solving Drainage Problems. BY RALPH L. HARMON OR 30 or 40 years farmers of Minnesota and the two Da- kotas have known that field drainage was the only thing that could reasonably insure them regular crops, but not until the present season has there been a real be- ginning in drainage west of the Red river. On the Minnesota side tiling of the uplands has been under way for many years, and many former ponds and coulees now empty themselves into the river within 10 to 24 hours after a heavy rain, leaving the fields with no damaging surplus of water. In fact this has been so pronounced, the vol- ume of water discharged from the high- lands through tiling and open ditches, so great, that valley farmers have themselves been flooded, - while the small streams ran bank full. But that has been a difficulty on the Minnesota side of the river, and only in some localities. On the North Da- kota side, where drainage is even more badly needed, tiling has been almost unknown, partly because even if the fields were tiled, the sluggish, crooked stream has hardly capacity to carry off the water, and partly because of the expense. It costs a lot of money to buy dainage tile, buy machinery to dig the ditches, hire the labor, and then realize that one has added an expense of $20 to perhaps $30 per acre to his land, which will spread out as an extra burden over a number of years. Of course none but the well to do or wealthy farmers could think of com- prehensive drainage, and even these were always faced with the probability that there might be several seasons be- fore another scourge and they could wait. FARMERS CAN NOT SOLVE PROBLEM SINGwLY‘_ Al that individual farmers can do by way of getting rid of their own surplus water, will.really have little effect on the great problem of drainage, which must be worked out on broad lines taking into consideration the three states, and the fact that some great artery for carrying this water away in bulk must be developed. Whether that should be the Red River of the North or the Minnesota river, or both, is one of the perplexing problems that no drainage ‘congress during the agricul- tural history of the region has ever been able to settle. The farmers along neither stream want to take on the calamity of furnishing gangway for water from another section of coun- try that looks like it ought to go in another direction. Also the whole dainage problem will require surveys of those details of the land surface embraced on different slopes, and their coupling up to the big problem in an effective way. For instance Richland county, N. D., can not solve its drainage problem alone. ‘What it does there will affect what farmers further down stream in North Dakota or Minnesota will do, and what farmers in some parts of South Dakota will do. Many of these surveys have been made, but there are great gaps still to fill, and that takes, not only liberal appropriations by the three state legislatures involved, but a national act to allow the states to work together, and it will above everything else take time. Such efforts at co-operation be- tween the states as have been made, have not gotten far. The latest and most comprehensive was that of the farmer legislature of North Dakota which last winter named a conference commission, but the proposition still lacks funds and vigorous pushirng by all concerned. SOME BEGIN TILING THEIR OWN FIELDS It is because of these 30-year delays that some of the most foresighted farmers have taken up their own drain- age problems and are going to get as far as they can with them. In Ransom county, N. D., two or three wealthy farmers have this spring shipped in many carloads of tile and are draining their own worst low places, but the movement is by no means general in that county, although it is one of the severe sufferers every year there is high water. In Cass county, N. D,, several farm- ers have definitely taken steps to drain their lands, and some of this work is now under way with the prospect that there may be several thousand acres of the most valuable farm lands ad- jacent to the Red River, able to dis- charge their own waste water next spring. 3 Those who have undertaken the pro- ject have encouragement from what has been accomplished in local drain- age where small efforts have been made. For instance on the famous old Grandin farm in northern Cass county, where some hand-laid tile has been on duty for a dozen years, the land show- ed, it is said, a gain of 10 bushels of wheat to the acre the first year, and has ever since demonstrated its greater yielding power. ‘When the first tile ditches were dug on the J. A. Yunker farm northwest of Fargo this summer the ground was so wet beneath the surface that a two- inch stream of water was being dis- charged from a tile into the main open ditch, while men and horses working on the field could kick up dust. And this tile was only three and one-half feet below the surface. NEW ERA LOOMS IN DRAINAGE Mr. Yunker is one of the very first North Dakota farmers to tile his land— under the new era of tile drainage which has now certainly begun for the state, if not the very first. In Illinois where he formerly farmed, he knew what tile would do, and when nearly 12 years ago he came to Cass county and bought his present place he told mem- bers of his family that the land would have to be tiled before it would do it- self justice, During the whole 11 years that the farm has been in crop there has not been a single season . when it produced a full crop because so much of it was water logged and sour. Judging from the good yield of grain and potatoes on the higher por- tions that could get their head above the water table, the farm some seasons produced- no more than half of whats would have been a normal crop. This farm will be the first to be tile drained in this part of the state, and Mr. Yunker expects to drain his whole 300 acres before putting the machine to work on other farms where a big demand for tiling has sprung up. If there were two or three other ma- chines in the valley that were free to do tiling under contract, there are farms on which they could be working right now, but such machines are ex- pensive and there are few farmers who will invest so much in what is bound to be of only temporary use to themselves. Mr. Yunker’s ditcher cost la8t year $3800 besides the freight. It would cost now $4200 besides freight, reason enough why farmers do not take to ditchers as they have to take to trac- tors and_ separators and such equip~ ment. On this farm tile is being strung every 100 feet apart clear across the field, each string being about half a mile long. This figures out about one- half mile of tile for every six acres and it costs approximately (more accurate figures when the work is finished may, - increase this) $96 per 1000 feet of tile. That does not include final covering, but does include cost of laying the tile in the ground and putting on enough dirt to “bind” it. It takes a crew of at least four men to operate the machine and deliver the tile, keep the lines sur- veyed ahead of it, and put on the bind- er. This brings the cost per acre to $25 and there will be the cost of filling the ditches to be added. About 35 car- loads of tile will be put in the ground on this one farm when its 300 acres are drained. The machine in use is a powerful tractor driven on caterpillar wheels with broad wooden treads that will carry it across swamps and over open ditches at a rapid rate. Digging three and one-half feet in the heavy Red river valley soil, the machine is regu= larly traveling five feet per minute, keeping the man who works in the bottom of the ditch busy laying the sections end to end. Ditcher on the J. A. Yunker farm (N. D.) just starting a tile drainage ditch. The big wheel with shovel-cups eats through the earth at 5 feet a minute, making a narrow trench in which one man keeps busy laying sections of 5-inch tile. For Pure Seed Next Year EED growers of North Dako- ta will be given the best help of the North Dakota Agricul- tural college in growing seed for next year’s crop, and the work is already under way. Other states are perhaps taking similar steps where they have laws that make it practicable, but the North Dakota - statutes provide especially for inspec- tion of growing crops with a view -to certifying those fields that are pure enough for seed production, and a spe- cial appeal has been issued by the col- lege to co-operate in this work. With a view of locating a large sup- ply of high quality, improved or pedi- greed seeds for the crop of 1918, a force of the department of plant pathology of the experiment station and of the pure seed Ilaboratory will be on the road to aid farmers-in every way * possible to recognize admixtures in the fields which they expect to harvest for seed for sowing purposes. Every pos- sible effort will be put forth to .aid those who are growing seed for sale as seed to feel assured that that which they are saving will be of good quality. Under the law the seed laboratory authorities have been listing seed grain for a_number of years. Though the amount listed has increased yearly, it has been impossible to list enough good seed to satisfy the demand. Re- quests come for such seed in carload lots.. Very few farmers are able to supply such requests under present conditions because of mixtures of varie- ties, seeds, disease infection, -or other ~ controllable troubles. If the seed laboratory had during last - summer, been able to get into closer touch with more growers so that they could have early prepared their seed for listing, the service to the pub- lic could easily have been much greater. Those who expect to grow seed of any kind for sale as seed should let the college know the variety and acreage, the location, and their full address at the earliest possible moment. Give rural route box, railway station, dis- tance and direction of farm from the station. Address Botanist and State Seed Commissioner, Agriculture Col- lege, N. D. sleny SIMAKERY ) o The Ohio experiment station found that only 5 out of 30 farmers who rais- ed veal calves, made a profit at present prices of feed and live veals, that the average loss was $2 per head on 323 head in 18 different farmers’ herds. * * * The Wisconsin Agriculturist of Ra- cine, Wis., figures that it costs the dairy farmer 39 cents a pound to pro- duce butter fat.- Prices at many Northwestern cream stations are 38 to 42 cents. 2 = * * * Livestock losses due to lack of feed last winter, and sheep losses due to late lambing and bad storms at lambing time, have joined to help slash meat resources of the country. Winter losses were far above the last 10 year aver- age. ; ; PAGE EIGHT Back to the Farm - by Law “Every inhabitant possessor of any land, either in ownership or lease, who is without a trade or habitual oc- cupation, or having no apparent means of subsistence for himself and family, must plant, according to his force and to the extension and conditirn of the land, the quantity of 3 gantas of corn seed at each time, 1,000 bushels of sweet potatoes, 1 chupa of mango, ; 25 shrubs of coffee, cotton, alligator pear, 50 or more cocoanut trees each year, as also other fruits, such as or- anges, bananas, lemons, mangoes, etc., and vegetables; and the rice must be planted in lands where it can be grown in sufficient quantity for the owner and his associates. He must also have permanently at least 12 hens and 1 cock or more, 1 hog and sow, and other animals he deems necessary. “Citizens who possess no land for plantation may solicit from the gov- ernment in lease, but said land shall not exceed 5 hectares of superficial area.” In order to enforce these regulations it is provided: “If the land be -not cleaned and planted by the owner or lessee at the expiration of the time fixed by this law, he shall be considered ‘vagrant’ and punished accordingly, unless. he proves that he was preventsd from accomplishing the work by some good cause.” z This is the U. S. navy’s decree to farmers on the island of Guam, which is governed by a naval officer.