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Show Prize Wheat Will Grow in Platte V alley by 'Right Guess' on Rain depended chiefly upon wheat, and because the quality of their wheat didn't measure up to the best milling standards, Leo travelled down to the Kansas Agricultural college at Manhattan, Man-hattan, where Prof. John S. Parker had crossed Marquis spring and Turkey Red to get a good dry soil wheat, named Tenmarq. No sooner had Leo harvested the Tenmarq in the spring of 1937 and sold it, than a miller's representative representa-tive proposed he recover the grain he had already disposed of and, with the remainder on his hands, sell it all to farmers in me region for seed. Leo did, and not only is the variety in common use there, but he himself him-self won the 1943 Pillsbury award with it. Down in the lower reaches of the Platte river valley, irrigation makes possible the growth of sugar beets, corn, alfalfa, oats and barley. bar-ley. But wheat is still the principle crop on the higher ground, and the successful development of that country coun-try and Leo's own victory in the Pillsbury contest, are ample evidence evi-dence of what can be accomplished when folks are moved to make something better of the things at hand. . i When Leo Lindstrom of Sterling, Colo., recently was awarded first prize for the best wheat grown in the U. in 1943 in the Philip W. Pillsbury Company's annual contest, con-test, his victory climaxed the story of how the initiative of a free people made good farmland out of a rolling prairie in 32 years. It was in 1912 that "Pa" Lindstrom struck out for the west from Fremont, Fre-mont, Neb., with his family, including includ-ing little Leo, then 11 years old. Bringing the team of horses to a stop on high ground of the Platte river valley near the then small town of Sterling, "Pa" homesteaded on several sev-eral acres of the open country. Like the other settlers, the Lind-stroms Lind-stroms built a house of sod walls and roof, seeded a few acres of wheat, and raised a handful of cattle and pigs, often feeding the animals with fresh cuttings of grass from the prairies. Blessed with only scattered rainfall, rain-fall, the Lindstroms and other settlers set-tlers soon discovered that they couldn't raise much else beside wheat in their part of the country, and it was only through experience that they found a way of utilizing the light precipitation for getting good yields. By the time Leo got married and started out on a 160-acre farm in 1926, the folks on the high ground in the Platte valley found wheat would come up if they broke up the soil in the spring and let it lie fallow all summer to soak up the "dash" rainfalls which occur for 10 to 15 minutes. Then, after determining that the soil had enough moisture, they'd sow their seed in the fall. Of course, a lot depended upon guessing right, but after much experience, ex-perience, Leo and the other folks nearly always judged correctly. By wisely expending the income gained from wheat growing and starting off cattle for the midwestern feed lots, Leo and folks like him gradually gradu-ally increased their holdings until today the average farm in the vicinity runs from 500 to 2,000 acres. But because the 25,000 folks within with-in a 75-mile-radius of Sterling still |
