The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 1, 1919, Page 12

i ‘! on fall-plowed land—the 260 "~ the subject of dry-land farming. ' lowing year was sown also on i land. e e e e e et e e - Will ProperTillage Save Drouth Loss? Essential Points in System Advocated by Hardy W. Cambbellé—;Special A ’ Treatment for Root Bed as Well as the Surface of the Soil The story given below _is the first of a series which the Nonpartisan Leader will publish on The proper solution to this problem will mean the differ- encg between success and failure to thousands of farmers in the far Northwest. It is a struggle for power between man and the forces of nature and it is probable that man still has much to learn before he can claim complete success. Tillage and irrigation are the two general solutions offered. Readers should judge these articles on their own merits and not consider the Leader as advancing or recommending any particular method of pro- cedure. e purpose of the series of articles is to put before Leader readers what a num- ber of different investigators are thinking on this important subject. BY. R. A. HASTE s HE Campbell system “1__ | - of soil culture was not an invention. It was a growth. It was built up from a long series of -observations and experi- ments—a series extending over more than a quarter_of a cen- tury. This is the history of it. N It was in 1880 that Hardy W. Campbell, a maker of butter tubs, having been burned out in Vermont, concluded to go west and try his luck at farming. It was during the. first rush of immigration into South Dakota. Stopping at Beloit, Wis., he gath- ered up an outfit consisting of four yoke of oxen and the usual farming tools. In a few weeks he “brought up” in Brown county, S. D., near what is now the city of Aberdeen. The country was new and absolutely untried. There was no record of rainfall and no previous experi- ments to guide the pioneers in their farming op- erations. But the plodding ox- s en in time turned over the sod of a half section of land and jn 1882 Campbell harvested 12,- 000 bushels of wheat frém 300 acres of this Brown county prairie. The next year the crop on 260 acres of this same land was an absolute failure, while 40 acres returned a good yield. This was puzzling, and Camp- bell, being a Scotchman as well as a Yankee, proceeded at once to ferret out the reason. The record-breaking crop of 12,000 bushels had been grown acres that had failed the fol- fall-plowed land, and the 40 acres from which a good crop had ‘been obtained the second year was on spring-plowed What could be more plain than this demonstration? Spring plowing produced good crops. Fall plowing meant failure. Everybody could see this so everybody proceeded to plant. their grain on spring- plowed land, but fortunately Hardy W. Campbell thinks he has Proper tillage is the answer to the problem of a climate too dry for ordinary farm methods, according to many investiga- tors in many parts of the world. Hardy W. Campbell of Bil- lings, Mont., believes he has found a method of tillage effective - in territory subject to recurring drouth periods. article on this page brings out some of the fundamental points in his system. in the soil for the use of the plant it would be pos- ible to secure a fair crop even in drouthy years. The problems presented to Campbell, therefore, were first, to conserve the rainfall; second, to so fit the soil that this moisture could pe made available to the plant. While the conservation of moisture in- the soil seems very simple now it was not so simple 25 years ago, for very few had given any attention to the problems of soil moisture and its relation to plant life. ‘The farme?fs of the Middle West were interested in getting rid of their Surplus water by ditching and draining. When a drouth came their crops failed, of course, but'they never thought of holding it in the soil against a tiine when the custom- ary rains might fall. The idea of farming so as to retain any surplus moisture in the soil was foreign to their experience and therefore un- thinkable. It is true that a few men like King of Wisconsin and Hil- garth of California had been experimenting along the lines they had not as-yet given the results of their experiments to the world—the primal sod was as yet unbroken. To unravel this tangled skein of soil and water in their re- lation to plant life became with Campbell a doniinant passion. He gathered together and read everything obtainable on soil physics/and soil chemistry. He studied up on the subject of plant life and its relation to - the soil. He made systematic observations to the effect of the different kinds of tillage. A dozen times within the 10 years following he felt that he had solved the problem only to meet with -some wunexplain- able result that would over- throw his conclusions. At last he concluded that If Campbell is right, he has a great message for the farmers of western North Dakota, of eastern Montana, of parts of South Dakota, and of a number of other middle west and far west states which we do not ordinarily think of as being in the dry column. To insure giving Camp- bell’s system fair presentation to its readers, the Leader has gone directly to Campbell’s right-hand man, Editor R. A. Haste of Campbell’s Scientific Farmer, for its information. of scientific soil culture, but for the farmers of Brown county it was impossible to plow all their land in the spring and a certain per cent of their wheat was sown on land plowed the preceding fall. When harvest came it. was found that the crops on fall- plowed land yielded about dou- found the secret of successful dry- farm tillage during his experience as a farmer in South Dakota and for many years he has been trying to tell ~ the world about it in hia monthly mag- azine, Campbell’s Scientific Farmer. Mr. Campbell’s books and work are - known in all parts of the world where lack of rain is a menace to farming. moisture could be retained in the soil by the use of a soil mulch and that the process of maintaining this mulch was a practical farm operation. Deep plowing would allow the rainfall to percolate into the soil and the mulch on the g S e ble those on - spring-plowed land. Why did nature thus reverse herself? Why ; was she playing this three-shell game with the farmers? There seemed to be no relation between the preparation of the soil and the yield of the crop. I CAMPBELL- BEGINS TO : N INVESTIGATE FOR REASONS (' neighbors. 'They accepted the situation as past . Here is where Campbell parted company ‘with his N finding out, but Campbell was convinced that there 'A ~must be a REASON for this apparent contradiction h & of principles and proceeded to investigate. He the time of plowing, but in the condition of the soil 4 came to the conclusion that the secret lay,.not in . at the time of plowing. If it were possible to retain { | @ reasonable proportion of the rainfall and hold it L4 B A R b T R S T A s s surface would prevent its evap- oration. It worked all right in theory, but he found that in many cases the ex- pected results were not' obtained. Something was missing—there was evidently a weak link in his chain of procedure. The crops-would grow abun- dantly for a time, but when a severe drouth ap- peared they would die, apparently for lack of water, " although the subsoil was filled with moisture. Here the mules came to his assistance. He ob- served that in the track of the mules that drew the seeder and in the track where a loaded wagon had been drawn across the field the wheat grew rank and matured, while the balance of the field was a failure. It was a blind hint but it was sufficient. He concluded that there was a break in the capil- lary .connection between the plowed portion and the subsoil which prevented the moisture stored in-the “ PAGE TWELVE ' e e T L8 el e e I o L e A e ~ subsoil from rising to the roots of the plants. ; a2 g Here was born the idea of the sur- face packer—an implement designed to firm the under portion of the plow- ed soil, produc¢ing a fine and firm root bed into which the subsoil water may rise to the roots of the crops. This simple implement consisting of a se- ries of skeleton wheels with a dia- mond-shape rim cuts into the plowed soil with a downward and lateral pres- sure, obliterating the air spaces form- ed by the furrow slice. At the same time it crushes whatever clods remain after the plowing. This establishes capillary connection between the up- per seed bed and the lower root bed, a condition absolutely necessary if a crop is to withstand a drouth. £ USING TWO YEARS’ RAINFALL FOR A CROP Where the rainfall is less than 16 inches per an- num and does not always come during the growing season in sufficient quantity to insure a crop, it is advisable to use the rainfall for two years in the production of one crop. This is accomplished by conserving the soil moisture by means of summer tillage or clean summer fallow. The field is not only kept free from all weed growth, but a soil mulch is maintained on the surface by a light cul- tivation after each rain sufficient to pack the sur- face. But the conservation of moisture is not the only object of summer tillage. Early in the game, Campbell insisted that cultivation of the soil during the heat of the summer brought about a chemical change that liberated the plant food within the soil so that the land was not only supplied with abundant moisture for the crops but had received what was_equivalent to a liberal amount of fertili- zation. In this he was only half right. He had hit upon a definite result but had not traced the primal cause to its lair. This was left to Bolley and other soil biologists to work out. Of this interesting subject we shall write later. For 15 years Campbell talked and wrote without any special recognition from agricultural author- ities. It was not until 1895 that he received récog- nition from the general public and then it came, not from agrieultural authorities, not from agri- cultural colleges nor from the United States de- partment, but from the railroads that were trying to develop the semi-arid West. The men at the head of these corporations were not bound by tra- dition. They wanted to know the facts—they want- ed results. They were all from Missouri and Camp- bell undertook to show them. : The Northern Pacific was the first to recognize Campbell as the founder of a system of crop grow- ing based on the scientific handling of the soil in regard to water conservation. They established a demonstration farm at Lisbon, N. D., and put Campbell in charge. . The lead was followed by the Burlington, then by the Sante Fe, the Union Pa- cific and other western systems. : For another 10 years Campbell was busy work- ing-out his ideas in the great field laboratory of the West between the Missouri river and the moun- tains. It was not until 1902 that he presented the results of his investigatdons in a concrete form by publishing a manual of soil culture. This attempt in the light of subsequent demonstrations was crude, but it brought him instant recognition. He became known as the founder of a distinct system The of agriculture, especially adapted to the semi-arid or sub-humid regions publicity had its draw- advantages, for it [ opposition from agri- ‘=& . of the world. This backs as well as .its aroused ' considerable cultural authorities. A sub-surface packer built in three sections. The function of this machine in the Campbell method is to prepare the firm seed bed. sub-surface air spaces left by ordinary plowing. It removes the byl 8