Perkins County Steers Preparing to Help the Allies

     During a period covering twenty years, from 1895 to 1916, Nebraska has been the third largest corn producer among the states. Hon. S. C. Basset of Gibbon, a Nebraska pioneer whose information concerning Nebraska is perhaps greater than that of any other individual, asserts that during the last thirty-eight years corn has represented more than 50 per cent of the total agricultural wealth production of the state. It is undoubtedly true that corn will continue to be Nebraska's chief agricultural resource.
     There is not a county in Nebraska that does not produce corn in paying quantities, although a number of the counties do not produce corn for shipment to market in its natural state. It is fed at home and marketed in the shape of fat cattle and hogs. Gage county and Saunders county were the largest corn producers in 1917, their combined production being nearly 16,000,000 bushels. The west line of these counties is within fifty miles of the Missouri river. Sioux county, in the extreme northwestern corner of the state, produced an average of 24 bushels per acre, and Kimball county, in the extreme southwestern part of the state produced an average of 17 bushels per acre. Custer county, which is as nearly the central county of the state

as any other could possibly be, produced an average of 42 bushels per acre. Hooker Grant, Thomas, Cherry, Arthur and McPherson counties, which may be taken as typical of the socalled "sandhill region," produced an average of 20 bushels of corn per acre in 1917. The real value of this corn production in the six counties last named is not measured by the cash market price but by its value to the cattle feeders of that wonderful cattle producing section. There is not a county in Nebraska where corn production is not profitable. In the eastern section it is profitable to raise it for sale in its raw state. In the central and western sections its profit shows best when fed to stock. The silo has added much to the value of corn for feeding purposes in the western part of the state where the altitude is so great that corn fails to mature properly a goodly portion of the time. The corn is cut before frost and put into silos and provides an abundant and extremely valuable winter forage.
      Land available for corn production in the eastern part of the state commands a high price because of nearness to market, but good corn lands in the central and western part of the state may be purchased at a price that guarantees a profit to the intelligent farmer who combines industry with his intelligence.

     During a period of twenty years, 1895 to 1916, Nebraska was the fourth largest wheat producing state. Wheat is successfully grown in every county in the state, winter wheat predominating in the eastern and central sections and spring wheat in the western section. The average yield per acre in 1916 was 22.7 bushels, the average for the entire United States being 12.5 bushels per acre.
     There are immense areas of land in western Nebraska peculiarly adapted to the production of wheat, and which areas are not now cultivated. They are used for grazing lands or for wild hay harvests. During 1915 and 1916 many instances occurred where men purchased from a quarter section to a full section of this wild land and paid for the entire acreage from one crop of wheat. The growing use of the farm tractor is resulting in large areas of hitherto vacant land being put into wheat. But wheat raising in western Nebraska offers unusual opportunities to the small farmer-the man who is able to get hold of only a small tract of land. While Nebraska is the fourth largest wheat producing state, it has scarcely approached its possibilities along this line of production. Hundreds of thousands of acres of good wheat land are still untouched by the plow; are still given over to grazing or wild hay. And this vast acreage may be purchased at a price exceedingly low when compared with its production possibilities, and upon terms that will enable men who can demonstrate their good faith and their industry to acquire title thereto in a comparatively short space of time.

Hazel Furman, Champion Girl Canning Expert of Nebraska

The homeseeker who is looking towards Nebraska for comparatively cheap land should not overlook the wheat possibilities of western Nebraska. Eastern and central Nebraska have already proved their leadership in wheat production, but the time seems near at hand when the eastern half of Nebraska will have to "go some" if its hold upon the premiership in wheat production is not wrested from it by western Nebraska.