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Show NEED OF IRRIGATION Feasible and Necessary in Middle Mid-dle Western States. Australian Expert Declares It Would Largely Increase Profits of Farm New and Improved Methods Are Demanded. , That Irrigation Is as feasible and necessary In the middle west as In other parts of the United States, for the enlargement of crop production and farm profits, Is the opinion of Prof. S. Mcintosh, director of Irrigation Irriga-tion for South Australia, who, while In Chicago a few days ago, was Interviewed. In-terviewed. Professor Mcintosh takes the position posi-tion that nothing but Intensive farming farm-ing and business methods will save the agricultural situation. Land Is advancing ad-vancing so rapidly in value that It takeB capital to engage In farming. Better methods of cultivation and marketing are earnestly advocated by this expert, who spends his time in study and experiments in order to advance the scientific aspect of agriculture agri-culture In his country. "The growth of cities here and the general expansion of the United States have resulted In high-priced land," Bald Professor Mcintosh. "That with the growing cost of labor makes farming a business proposition. It requires re-quires capital to get started right on a farm and then there have to be business principles to bring a return on the capital. In the middle west farmers find the cost of production so greatly Increased that they must move to cheaper land or adopt Intensive Inten-sive principles. That is as true for dairying as for grain raising. "Farmers In other parts of the world are learning how to accomplish as much , on forty or fifty acres as formerly for-merly they did on one hundred. In this locality they have to grapple with the question of summer feeding, owing to successive droughts, and when it comes to raising an abundance abund-ance of forage crops as well as the winter's supply of grain, vegetables and hay they need to consider irrigation. irri-gation. In the modern aspect of affairs af-fairs it will not do to let crop raising rais-ing go on hazard. It is necessary to make as much of a certainty of it as possible. "It Is not necessary to wait for legislation leg-islation to secure a water supply. 1 believe that each state ought to assist the cause of irrigation In some way perhaps not on the extensive scale of the general government, but in afford-ig afford-ig legislation calculated to protect all interests and showing just what the individual has a right to do. But 1 would advise land owners to go ahead and irrigate their farms as a private enterprise. "In many cases it will be feasible for a number of individuals to co-operate, and in that way there will be a saving. A man should provide for the cost of a water supply on his place just as much as for a barn or any other improvement that is considered indispensable. "We have demonstrated in hundreds hun-dreds of cases in Australia that the ordinary gasoline engine will pump all the water needed on fifty to 100 acres. It is practicable to store the water in an open cement reservoir at some elevated point on the farm, or a tank holding 1,000 gallons or more may be constructed for the same purpose and filled either by windmill or engine. "Intensive farming has become necessary, not merely for Individual prosperity, but as an economic principle prin-ciple of world-wide importance. Better Bet-ter farming on any plan or theory may be called intensive, but an assured as-sured water supply should be the first Btep toward that end. It has taken farmers of the central states many years to learn the Importance of summer sum-mer feeding, to take the place of inadequate in-adequate pasturage. They now need to study the value of soiling crops and a successful system of double cropping. crop-ping. Much of the land wasted In pasturage during dry summers may be made profitable if devoted to forage for-age or fodder crops. With Irrigation and intensive farming, smaller places will do, and the progressive man will not only get started on a smaller investment in-vestment of capital, but will prosper much better than he could under the old syBtem." Professor Mcintosh haB experimented experiment-ed a great deal with double cropping. This is comparatively easy, he says. In the production of vegetables, where a crop Is developed In from four to eight weeks. With grain, forage or fodder It Is a more difficult matter. The soil Is constantly losing its supply sup-ply of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, phos-phorus, some of these more important crops making a heavy drain on the nutrients in the land. Crop rotation and liberal supplies of barnyard fertilizer fer-tilizer are the first essentials. It is an excellent plan to sow rye and clover together in the fall to provide pro-vide an early fodder crop the following follow-ing summer. This may be cut about the l?t of June, after which the land makes good pasturage for a few weeks. If the growth of clover is heavy it will pay to keep that field lor hay the next season, but If It Is light it ought to be plowed up about the 1st of August and sown to millet. mil-let. This will add a tine lot of hay to the winter's supply and the seed is immensely valuable, for poultry feeding. "Fodder corn could be planted after the rye and clover are taken off in June, if that is preferable to millet. Either corn or millet may follow early potatoes the same season. |