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     MR. KIESSELBACH: Soy beans yielded 22 bushels to the acre at the Experiment Station this year, whereas navy beans yielded about 10 bushels. This is the first year we have made such a comparison and I do not know what would be normal relative yields for the two crops. Soy beans have a much higher food value than navy beans.

     QUESTION: How are soy beans used for food?

     MR. KIES5ELBACH: They are ground here at the Station into flour, when used in conjunction with corn meal or wheat flour, excellent pancakes, muffins, corn breads and other breads may be had. Special dishes may also be prepared from the whole soy beans boiled. Their higher protein content is a fair substitute for meat which many of us now feel obliged to dispense with largely. Their use as human food is more promising than as food for live-stock because alfalfa may be grown so much more cheaply than soy beans.

     QUESTION: What about planting time, varieties, and cultivation?

     MR. ZOOK: Planting time is about May 20 to June 1. They are grown in cultivated rows and tilled about the same as corn except that we usually find one hoeing necessary. The earlier varieties such as Habaro and Early Yellow are most dependable.

     MR. HOPT: I think that with the shortage of labor existing, the soy bean is not a practical crop to grow on a large scale. Soy bean growing should probably be left largely to the South where they yield relatively much more in proportion to cereals than here.

     History and tradition discloses the fact that tribes of Indians inhabited these plains some three centuries before the advent of white men, that these tribes had a civilization adapted to their mode of living, that they engaged in the pursuit of agriculture to a limited extent, cultivating certain plants for food purposes and also, for like purpose, making use of plants and fruits growing in a wild or uncultivated state.

     Of the plants cultivated by Indian tribes for food purposes, the principal one was corn, and when white men came to occupy these plains, corn was the first and principal food crop grown and has so continued to the present time.

     While there has been a rapid and marvelous development of agriculture in Nebraska (as well as elsewhere) in the past half centuryy (sic), and many plants useful and profitable for food purposes have been

grown in steadily increasing quantities, yet ever and always the corn produced has been of greatest importance both as a food product and a producer of agricultural wealth. Whether comparisons be made year by year, decade by decade, or by using the longest periods in which official statistics of crop production have been kept, the result is invariably the same--that the farm value of corn produced in Nebraska not only has exceeded that of any other food plant grown, but has exceeded in farm value the total of all our principal food crops--wheat, oats, barley, rye and potatoes.

     The development of agriculture in Nebraska may quite properly be said to have begun in the period 1870-1880. It is true there were settlers in the territory at a much earlier date and there were food crops produced, but previous to the year 1870 such settlers were located almost exclusively in the Missouri river valley, and the limited crop production was rather beginnings in agriculture than a development of our agricultural resources.

     Let me illustrate the thought in mind as follows:

     The territory of Nebraska was organized in the year 1854. The United States census returns show that corn was produced to the extent of 1,482,000 bushels in the territory in the year 1859. For the year 1863, there was produced in the state of Nebraska 4,736,000 bushels of corn.

     Practically all food crops grown in the territory and state of Nebraska previous to the period 1870-1880, were grown in the valley of the Missouri river which may he said to extend from the river to the sixth principal meridian line, a distance of approximately seventy-five miles. The sixth principal meridian line forms the west boundary line of the counties of Jefferson, Saline, Seward, Butler, Stanton and Wayne, passing through the city of Columbus near the eastern border of Platte county, and this meridian line may be said to be the boundary line as between the Missouri river valley and the plains region of the state.

     In the census returns for 1860, 94 per cent of the population was located east of the Columbus meridian line. The census for 1870 shows that of the total population of the state, 95 per cent was located east of this meridian line. Hence, previous to the period 1870-1880, both population and crop production were practically confined to the Missouri river valley.

     In the period 1879-1880, more than 3,000 new settlers came into the state, and 54 per cent, settled on land west of the sixth principal

meridian,--on the plains of Nebraska. In this period began, in fact and in spirit, the development of the agricultural resources of the state, both in the Missouri river valley and in the plains region as well. In the 1880 census 40 per cent of the population of the state was located west of the Columbus meridian line and in the year 1879 there was produced 65,450,000 bushels of corn.

     Corn production has been and still is the best standard by which to determine the development of our agriculture as well as to measure the production of agricultural wealth, for the reason before stated, that the value of corn produced exceeds that of all our principal cultivated food producing crops,--wheat, oats, barley, rye and potatoes. To illustrate, let us take in comparison the value of corn produced with that of corn, wheat, barley, oats, rye and potatoes in five-year periods, beginning with the year 1880.

     Table 2.--December 1, farm values as given in year books of the United States Department of Agriculture.

     In discussing corn production it is customary to consider acres devoted to corn and bushels per acre.

     The all important factor in crop production is that of rural population--people who live upon farms--and let us consider briefly from that standpoint, the approximate number of bushels of corn produced in Nebraska per capita of rural population, in an effort to determine if, as a people, we are becoming more efficient in corn production.

     In table 3, the rural population comprises people living on farms and not including those living in cities or villages. Rural population based on census returns, in Nebraska, is aproximately (sic) 59 per cent of total population.

     To illustrate the fact that increase in elevation causes a shortening of the growing season for many plants useful in our agriculture, and to illustrate its effect on corn production in the state, let us compare well matured specimens of corn grown in the year 1917, which show adaptations to the elevation, precipitation and length of the growing season in the immediate locality where each ear was grown.

     At Omaha the elevation is aproximately (sic) 1,000 feet. In this portion of the state the average annual precipitation, covering a long period of years, is 30.06 inches, and the average growing season for corn is aproximately (sic) 140 days. Under conditions thus prevailing there was produced a speciment (sic) ear of fully matured corn 11 inches in length, weighing 17 ounces and requiring 66 such ears to make a bushel by weight.

     At North Platte, near the central portion of the state from east to west, the elevation is aproximately (sic) 2,800 feet. In this locality the average animal precipitation, covering a long period of years, is 18.86 inches and the growing season for corn is aproximately (sic) 115 days.

     Under such conditions there was produced a specimen ear of fully matured corn 8 inches in length, weighing 9 ounces and requiring 124 such ears to make a bushel by weight.

     In the extreme western portion of the state the elevation at water level is aproximately (sic) 4,000 feet. At Kimball, where the elevation is 4,700 feet, the average annual precipitation, covering a period of twnty-six (sic) years, has been 15.63 inches and the average growing season for corn aproximately (sic) 100 days.

     Under such conditions there was produced, without irrigation, a specimen ear of corn, fully matured, seven and one half inches in length and weighing 7 ounces, requiring 16o such ears to make a bushel.

     On the Platte river bottoms in Scotts Bluffs county, where the elevation is aproximately (sic) 4,000 feet and the average annual precipitation and the growing season for corn are practically the same as in Kimball county, a specimen ear of fully matured corn, reported to be

grown without irrigation, measured seven and three fourths inches in length, weighed 8 ounces, requiring 140 ears to make a bushel.

     Speaking in a general way, not to be understood as exact and definite, elevation increases from east to west across the state at an aproximate (sic) rate of seven and one half feet per mile. Crossing the state from east to west, average annual precipitation decreases at an aproximate (sic) rate of one inch for each twenty-seven miles of distance, and the growing season for corn is shortened at a rate of approximately one day for each ten miles of distance.

     To illustrate the rapid increase in elevation on the plains of Nebraska, let us take in comparison the valley of the Mississippi river from the gulf of Mexico to the head of navigation at Minneappolis (sic), Minn. The distance in a direct line is aproximately (sic) 1,100 miles. By the river route 2,161 miles. The elevation at Minneapolis is 800 feet. It will be seen in comparison, that the increase in elevation for a distance of one hundred miles (from east to west) on the plains of Nebraska is aproximately (sic) as great as is the increase in elevation from the gulf of Mexico to Minneapolis, Minn., a distance of 1,200 miles.

     The average fall in the Mississippi river (the river route) from Minneapolis to the gulf is aproximately (sic) 4 inches to the mile, while in Nebraska the average fall in the Platte river across the state is 90 inches to the mile.

     The comparisons herein made as to variations in rainfall, length of growing season for corn, together with samples of ears of corn grown under these varying conditions, may possibly, encourage a belief that the western part of the state is not adapted to the growing of corn.

     To illustrate, let us divide the state into two equal areas; the eastern boundary of the western half being the eastern boundary line of Furnas, Gosper, Dawson, Blame, Brown and Keyapaha counties, and passing through the center of Custer county.

     In the 1910 census returns 20.6 per cent of the rural population of the state reside in the western half of the state.

     In the 1915 year book of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture, 18.7 per cent of the corn produced in the state was grown in the western half. That is the western half of Nebraska, in the year 1915, having 20.6 per cent of rural population produced 18.7 per cent of the corn crop of the state which was 228,094,000 bushels.

READING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT--

     No. 1--Nemaha county. Elevation 1,000 feet. Average annual precipitation
            30.06 inches. Length of growing season, 140 days.

     No. 2--Sarpy county. Elevation 1,000 feet. Average annual precipitation
             30.06 inches. Length of growing season, 140 days.

     No. 3--Buffalo county. Elevation 2,000 feet. Average annual precipitation
            25.24 inches. Length of growing season, 125 days.

     No, 4.--Lincoln county. Elevation 2,800 feet Average annual precipitation
            18.86 inches. Length of growing season, 115 days.

     No. 5--Scotts Bluffs county. Elevation 4,000 feet. Average annual precipitation
            15.78 inches. Length of growing season, 100 days.

     No. 6--Kimball county. Elevation 4,700 feet. Average annual precipitation
            15.63 inches. Length of growing season, 100 days.

     

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© 2002 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller