It Pays to Do Things Properly and Carefully

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It Pays to Do Things Properly and Carefully

BY J. C. HOGENSON, DIRECTOR EXTENSION DIVISION, UTAH STATE

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

In organizing a boys' potato club in a certain part of the

state, Ihad the following experience

A certain boy became very enthusiastic over the club work,

and went home to ask his father if he might have the use of a

half acre of ground the next season to grow his potatoes on. The

father turned to him and said, "What You grow potatoes

!

What do you know about it? Here I have been growing potatoes

for the last thirty years, and I guess I ought to know how by this

time. Wedon't have to have those college fellows come down

here to tell us how to grow potatoes." The boy was a good

coaxer, however, and soon persuaded his father to let him have the

half acre of ground. That year, as the father was working on his

land, and the boy on his half acre, the father was pleased to note

the intense interest which the boy displayed in looking after his

potato plants and that fall the boy harvested one hundred

;

bushels of potatoes more on his half acre than the father did on

any half acre on the farm. The father began to take notice of

what the boy had done, and now is using the same methods used

by the boy. As a result, last year, he had better success with his

potatoes than he has had for the last fifteen years.

Many people get into the habit of doing things in a certain

way, and the longer they do their work that way, the less they see

on the outside. They do not acknowledge or realize that new

things are found out each year that will help that better and later

;

methods than the ones which they are using may greatly increase

the profits from their farms. In other words, they get into ruts,

and the longer they follow the old methods, the deeper the ruts be-

come, until finally they see nothing but their little old way of

doing their work to the exclusion of all progress and development,

or putting into practice the latest and best up-to-date methods.

Such men always say that farming does not pay.

If there is one thing which the farmers must learn more than

another, it is cultivation, and then more cultivation. We culti-

vate to loosen up the soil, to allow air to enter more readily, so that

more food may become available to plants. We

harrow to increase

the feeding area of the roots, all through the season, by giving

them finely divided soil in which to spread. We

harrow to put

the soil in the best possible condition to catch and hold the rains.

644 IMPROVEMENT ERA

We harrow to warm the soil, to aerate it, and to promote the

germ life that is so essential to its fertility. This

activity of the

means that the ground should be gone over more than is neces-

sary to merely break up the lumps so that the seeds will germinate.

It means harrowing and cross-harrowing, three times, four times,

six times, if necessary, or, until all of the upper four or five

inches of soil upturned by the plow has been made as nearly like

an onion bed in mellowness as the texture of the soil will per-

mit.

To show the necessity of conserving the moisture for plant

growth, I might state that under ordinary conditions, according to

experiments, 840 tons of water evaporated from one acre during

one week in May, where the soil was left rough as the plow leaves

it, while the soil that was harrowed, as soon as plowed, lost only

80 tons during the same time. It takes about 45 tons of water to

mature a bushel of wheat, so this man lost during one week by

not harrowing one acre of ground, enough moisture to mature 17

bushels of wheat. Throughout the state there are thousands of

acres which are left rough, not only for one week but for months,

or during practically the entire open season. Is it any wonder

some people do not get larger yields on their dry-farms?

Thorough, and at least moderately deep, plowing should al-

ways be practiced. In the case of four-inch plowing, this leaves

only two inches of moist, loose soil to feed the young plant while ;

in the case of eight inches of moist,plowed soil there are three

times as much. The lower four inches of the deep plowing will

contain more moisture than the lower two inches of the shallow

plowing. Deep plowing has the following advantages over shal-

low plowing: it produces a deep, mellow seed-bed which permits

sturdy root-development it holds the moisture and absorbs ad-

;

ditional moisture from timely rains and irrigations; when plants

get a right start in the right kind of a seed bed, they can with-

stand adverse conditions better later on, and at the same time give

you the best results. Deep plowing allows freezing to greater

depths, and deeper aeration, both of which conditions cause more

foods to become liberated so that the plants growing upon the

soil can use it in the proper proportions for maximum develop-

ment.

We can increase our yields by using better seed. As long

as we sow seed taken from the general bin and pay no attention

to the plants from which the seeds come, our yields will not in-

crease. Every seed has certain inherited qualities which cause

it to produce a plant as nearly like the plant from which it came.

as possible. If, then, we make the plant the unit of selection,

and plant only seeds that come from good plants, our vields are

bound to increase. Only large, plump, well matured seed should

be used. Small, shrunken, immature seeds, if they grow at all,

IT PAYS TO DO THINGS PROPERLY 645

produce poor, weakly sickly plants. Sow seeds that are free from

disease.

Sow only one straight variety of grain. Where a mixture of

varieties is sown, we never get as good results as we otherwise

would get, because some varieties are better suited to grow under

our conditions than others. Some naturally yield more than

others, some shatter easily while others do not, some are more

easily affected by diseases than others, some mature early and

some late.

I frequently hear the remark, "Oh, life is too short to do

things that way." That is, properly, carefully and right. The

other day a man told me that from three grain-threshing places

he gathered four wagon boxfuls of dirt, chaff and grain. From

these he cleaned 40 bushels of good wheat. At 80 cents per

bushel this would be $32 which is good pay for a day's work. He,

even then, left about as much again on the ground. Where grain

is stacked in the field, without any preparation of the ground, a

great waste of grain results. The man who owns the stacks may

think it a little thing, but it is one of the big leaks and one which

can be easily remedied by a little care and work, and that, too, by

no means in proportion to the financial gain resulting from the

work. The stack yard should be well cleaned and dragged.

In many fields at least four bushels per acre are left in the

field by careless cutting and loading. If a person had eighty

acres of grain and left four bushels per acre, it would mean 320

bushels, which at 80 cents per bushel would be $256. This would

more than pay for careful cutting and handling, ten times over.

Many persons let their grain stand until it is over-ripe so that

it shatters onto the ground. Here is another waste often of three

bushels per acre, or 240 bushels on the eighty acres, which at

the same price as above amounts to $192. Totaling up, we have

a total waste of 560 bushels of wheat or $448 on the eighty acres,

or seven bushels, or $5.60 per acre.

Many know these sayings are right, yet they say, "Oh well,!

we won't bother with them." Many are afraid to venture out for

fear that their neighbors and friends will ridicule and laugh at

them, and call them small and stingy.

LOGAN. UTAH