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Show THEY ARE TEACHING US. The Canadians in Alberta are teaching the farmers of Utah how to grow alfalfa, although the pioneers of this state were the first to Attempt the cultivation of lucerne and from Utah the entire west gained its knowledge of the culture of the clover until until scientific scien-tific farming became part of the campaign of colonization just across our boundary line in that new Northwest, and now, as we have said, the Canadians are teaching their teachers. J. L. Skecn, who is here renewing old friendships, says he remembers re-members when the cultivating of alfalfa was looked upon as almost a profitless task in Weber county, the plant developed so slowly and its leaves, a light yellow, seemed so lifeless. Had the farmers of Weber county been as blessed with scientific research and assistance as are the tillers of the soil on the Bow River, Riv-er, they would have been saved years of vexatious effort in establishing establish-ing a good growth of alfalfa. Though alfalfa is a new crop in Alberta, Canada, Mr. Skeen says the seed germinates, develops, lifts its head above the ground, grows to full maturity with the same vigor as does alfalfa in Weber county coun-ty today, and that is saying much. But neither climate nor soil has won this advantage for the Canadians. Prof. Fairfield, a young graduate of the Agricultural College of Colorado, obtained a 300-acre 300-acre tract near Lethbridge, Canada, three years ago. He seeded the ground in alfalfa, but and here is the magic of it all he did not trust too much to sun and air and water, for he drew from his handbag hand-bag a package of bacteria and, scattering a handful over the ground, much as a saintly padre might have blessed the land, he said: "Be fructiferous; make the seed to take root and grow into plants well nourished.." Fairfield had inoculated the soil with a bacteria which made possible pos-sible the supplying of the alfalfa with nitrogen. Alfalfa, after it has obtained a vigorous growth, will inoculate the soil of the neighborhood, neigh-borhood, and soil from an alfalfa farm transported to distant land, will do the same, but the quickest method is to have the bacteria do the work, just as it did for Fairfield in Lethbridge. Since the young American demonstrated the advantages of inoculation, that keenly observant body of colonizers, known as the Canadian Pacific Irrigation Irriga-tion & Colonization company, have engaged Fairfield to inoculate lands to be seeded to alfalfa, and even to treat the seed with the fluid thrown of by the bacteria, and, not only that, but they have made the Colorado expert one of their scientific demonstrators. There is something admirable in these wide-awake fellows to the north of us. They are ever on the alert to win for themselves new triumphs. Noting that the Gallatin Valley of Montana had a name for the best malting barley, they obtained from Bozeman college the finest quality of barley to be obtained and they started out to rival the Gallatin Valley by producing an equally good, if not better barley bar-ley in the Bow River Valley and today they are exporting to Europe a barley for which the great Scotch dealers in barley, Robt. Beard & Sons, are offering a ten-cent premium. These Canadians, with American advisers, took the Kansas Tur-1 key red and the red Fife from Ottawa, and by patient effort and, observing the law of selection, early practiced by Burbank with his potatoes, developed an Alberta red and a red Fife, superior, distinctive distinc-tive wheat. The wheat, set aside each season for seeding, is in part hand selected under the supervision of an expert and sent out to the farmers, and as a result, an excellent' hard wheat of constantly improving im-proving quality is being produced. The farmers of the United States are in need of the same guiding wisdom in their cultivation of the soil as is given ju3t across the line in Canada. |