Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 170, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1910 — ONE ACRE SUPPORTS THREE. [ARTICLE]

ONE ACRE SUPPORTS THREE.

Real Intensive Farmin* in the Orlen#—How It Is Done. A humble-minded pilgrimage by an expert was that of F. H. King of the Wisconsin Agricultural College to China and Japan to study why their soils could support three persons to the acre. Western scientific agriculturists have much to learn from those farmers who have made the soil respond for twenty and perhaps even forty centuries of service. The average farm is supporting three persons to the acre and in nearly all parts of the densely populated sections two, three and sometimes even four crops are taken from the same field each year. But this is not the only cause of their longer growing season, says Collier's Weekly. The almost universal practice of planting nearly all crops In tows and in hills in the row permits one crop to be planted, germinated and often hoed before another crop has been removed from the field, thus utilising for growth all of the time we consume in removing the harvest and fitting the ground for the next crop. Then there is the other very extensive practice of starting crops in nurseries under conditions of Intense fertilization, securing on a much smaller area rapid growth and strong plants, which are then transferred to the fields. In this manner even the vast areas covered by the staple rice crop are handled, the plants being grown thirty or more days in small beds, gaining thereby thirty to fifty days, during which another crop on the same field is matured, harvested, and the ground fitted for the one to follow. Human - labor is the one asset of which they have an excess, and it is freely used in securing the effect of longer seasons, which, because of their geographical position, exceed ours. In southern China two crops of rice are regularly taken, and this is true even in parts of Japan. In the Chekiang province a crop of rape, of wheat, of beans, or of green manure precedes the . summer crop of rice or of cotton. In the Shantung province a crop of winter wheat or of barley is followed 411 the summer with a crop of millet

and soy beans, of sweet potatoes or peanuts. As far north.as Tientsin and Pekin, in the latitude of Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, and Springfield, 111., Mr. King talked with a farmer who followed his crop of wheat with one of onions, and these with cabbage the same year, realizing a gross earning of >163 per acre. Another farmer planted a crop of Irish potatoes at the earliest opportunity in the spring, marketed them young, and followed with onions and then with cabbage, realizing >203 per acre for the three crops.