--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - J. C. Hogenson collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 17 number: 7 published: 1914-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'J. C. Hogenson, "It Pays to Do Things Properly and Carefully," *Improvement Era* 17, no. 7 (May 1914): 643–645.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1707unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1707unse start_page: 643 end_page: 645 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1707unse publication_year: 1914 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # It Pays to Do Things Properly and Carefully : ! 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