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Show ENRICH THE FARM. Experiment Farm Manager Furnishes Some Pointed Suggestions How to Do This. Gunnison Experiment Farm, Sept. 8, 1900. Editor Gunnison Gazette: It is a well-known fact to all the far mers in Gunnison valley, that its soils are extremely fertile and that banner crops have been raised with but very little care or attention. This, however, howev-er, does not indicate that we can go on in our hap hazard way of farming and expect to continue raising large and paying crops. It is true that by a judicious system sys-tem of rotation larger yields may be produced, owing to the fact that different dif-ferent kinds of plants require the essential es-sential plant foods in different proportions. propor-tions. But all plants require a certain cer-tain amount-, nf all thft ARSAnfial nlanr. foods, and consequently all crops remove re-move some of the sfored up plant elements. ele-ments. Knowing this fact it should not require re-quire a great amount of re&soning to convince one that it iaoniy a matter of time, uless we return some af '.he fertility fer-tility removed by the crops, uutil oar rich soils will become exhausted nnd the present yield greatly red uced , I u-deed, u-deed, some of the farms of this valley are already showing signs of exhaustion, exhaus-tion, or, as wesay, being "rundown." There is no excuse for such conditions, condi-tions, if land owners would but give reasonable attention to soil fertility. By poperly fertilizing, our rich lands will retain their present productiveness productive-ness for untold centuries to come. Apparently, people of this seotlon have not come to realize ihe value of fertilizing. This is p9rhaps due to the fact, that practically none of the more valuable crops have been raised here. However, even with the crops we are raisins: it pays to return some of the by-products to the land. A s evidence of this statement let me cite you to a few farmers who are using the waste products of their farms as fertilizers. Where do you find better yields than are obtained by Messrs. i. A. Tuft, N. P. Sorenson, Soren-son, Neils Larson. A. G. Fjeldsted, and some others of our successful farmers? far-mers? These farmers all attribute their exceptional crop yields principally princi-pally to fertilizing their land. There ii nothing the Gunnison valley soils needs more than humus, and this is obtained by applying the waste products pro-ducts to the land. Perhaps the most important problem prob-lem for farmers to solve now, is not so much how to increase the yield of the land but how to keep up its fertility, so that banner cropB may continue to be produced by future generations. Many farmers are already complain-(Continued complain-(Continued on last page) ENRICH THE FARM. Continued fron first page ing that their land does not produce as large crops as it did some years ago, and almost invariably wo find that these farmers do not fertilise. The Gunnison valley soils, I find, respond very readily to barnyard manure, ma-nure, and it should by all means be used on the land and not be burned as some farmers do with it. In most sections of the east farmers would not think of sowing a crop without first spending a considerable sum of money for commercial fertilizer. Such conditions con-ditions need never prevail in this picturesque valley if farmers will but utilize their barnyard manure. Every farmer should have his own cows, horses, sheep and hogs to eat up the produce of his fazm, or if he doeB not have these aaimals of his fiwn he should see to it that his hay is at least fed on his own land, so that a portion of the fertility removed from the land by the crops may be returned return-ed in the manure. Even at the present time farmers in Springville are paying as high as 50 to 60 cents per load for barnyard manure. ma-nure. One farmer at Richfield, this year, paid $1 per load for it hauled on his land, and he states that it was a very good investment, it doubling, he claims, his yield of sugar beets. In France, and many others of the older countries, the farmer's wealth is measured by the size of his manure heap. And that is what it will como to here when the plant food is leaohed out of the Boil and people begin to |