Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.06.1967, Blaðsíða 5

Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.06.1967, Blaðsíða 5
LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 1. JÚNÍ 1967 > S provements were due to the genius of the Massey and the Harris’ families in Ontario. In 1867, the year of Confedera- tion, the Massey firm won the gold medal at the Paris Ex- position for its reaper. In 1884, the Canadian Pacific railway was carrying the Harris rea- pers to the end of its line near Regina whence they were transported as far north as Prince Albert. The invention of the twine-knotter in the United States about 1880 pav- ed the way for the develop- ment of the self-binder which came on the market a few years later. Early versions of the threshing machine, which had been produced in Eng- land by 1790, were greatly im- proved in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Through these and other improvements in farm ma- chinery it was possible, by about 1890, for a small farm population to harvest a rela- tively large crop of grain. Some idea of the effectiveness of these labor-saving devices may be gained from the num- ber of man hours required for harvesting and threshing one acre of wheat in 1829, when the grain had to be cut with a sickle, bound, shocked, flailed, winnowed and sacked, and 1896, when it was cut with a binder, shocked and threshed with a threshing machine. In 1829, the time required was estimated at 46 hours; in 1896, three hours. Later develop- ments, which resulted in the production of the combine, have reduced this to less than one hour. Socially, these and other labor-saving devices have ex- erted a tremendous effect. With every decade that pas- ses, less manpower is needed to produce a thousand bushels of grain. The result has been a steady reduction of the farm population. The villages and small towns have grown smal- ler, the large towns and cities larger. But the total effect is doubtless an increase of the wealth of the country as a whole. When the first Canadian Pacific railway train traversed Western Canada from Winni- peg to Vancouver in the first week of July, 1886 there was already a narrow strip of settlement on both sides of the railway, extending from Winnipeg to Calgary; for the settlers had pushed ahead of the railway to break up the virgin prairie and plant their fields of wheat, oats and bar- ley. The story of the early settlers is too often chiefly the story of their hardships, difficulties and disappoint- ments; but it is also a story of achievement. Western wheat production in 1881 was about one million bushels; in 1890 it was 16 million; in 1901, 62 million. For grain storage, flat warehouses preceded eleva- tors. The first standard, square elevator was built at Gretna, Manitoba in 1881. In 1890 there were 103 ware- houses and 90 elevators in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. The difficulties, and even disasters, of the settlers were many. Unfortunately, many of the years that saw the major influx of settlers were years of drought: 1883 — drought and frost; 1885 — drought in the open plains area; 1886 — drought everywhere; 1887 — drought in Alberta; 1889 — drought and frost. But pro- gress was made despite dis- couragement that caused many to leave the country. One of the main difficulties was lack of advice on farming procedures. Each farmer brought with him the methods of farming to which he was accustomed in his place of origin; but these methods were not always the best in the region of his settlement. For- tunately, the need for expert advice had been foreseen by the Canadian government which, in 1888, established the Experimental Farms system which immediately provided the West with two experi- mental stations, one at Bran- don and another at Indian Head. Two able and dedicated men were appointed as super- intendents, S. A. Bedford at Brandon and Angus Mackay at Indian Head. The latter has been credited with the intro- duction and popularization of the practice of summerfallow which helped to increase yields in the drought years. The pro- vision of expert advice to farmers in these early days was no easy matter as no one knew the best remedies for many of the troubles that arose. These had often to be discovered by the slow pro- cess of experimentation. The farmers’ lack of knowledge in the recognition and control of plant diseases led to the grad- ual increase of some diseases. By the end of the eighties the smut of wheat had increased so much that British import- ers were complaining of the smuttiness of much Canadian wheat; and there was fear in official circles of injury to the reputation of our wheat. The education of the farmers in the control of smut diseases was one of S. A. Bedford’s early contributions. One of the great contribu- tions of the Experimental Farms was wheat variety im- provement. Red Fife, the most widely grown variety, matur- ed so late that it was often injured by frost. An impor- tant event was the production of the earlier maturing varie- ty Marquis by Dr. Charles E. Saunders by hybridization. Marquis resulted from cross- ing Red Fife with an early maturing wheat from India. Marquis had the fine milling and baking quality of Red Fife and, maturing about a week earlier, it often escaped fall frosts. Above all, its high yield and adaptability to many differents soils and climates ensured its rapid distribution throughout Canada and the northern United States soon after its distribution to farm- ers in 1909. As the Mississippi Valley filled up with grain fields the rusts of wheat and oats be- came an increasing problem. From 1891 onwards these crops began to suffer severe damage especially in years of abundant moisture and heavy stand of grain — the very years when good yields would be expected. The losses, more or less severe in the late nine- ties and the first years of this century, culminated in the great rust epidemic of 1916 which caused an estimated loss of 100 million bushels of wheat in Western Canada and an even greater loss in the United States. Although it was not clear how this problem could be solved, it was obvi- ously necessary to make a con- certed effort to apply all available scientific knowledge in an attempt to solve it. Canada’s chief effort consisted in establishing, in 1925, the Dominion Rust Research La- boratory, at Winnipeg, where a group of newly trained young scientists were put to work on the problem. The ef- forts of this group, and of si- milar groups of research workers in the United States, bore fruit in the production by hybridization of rust re- sistant wheats in the mid- thirties. Much the same type of solu- tion was found for one of the insect problems. The wheat stem sawfly lays its eggs near the base of the stem of the wheat plant. There the larvae develop and bore through the stem until the weakened plant falls over. No bread wheat varieties were resistant to the insect but durum wheats with solid stems were unaffected. By crossing these with bread wheats it became possible to produce varieties of bread wheat with solid stems. These varieties resisted the insect sufficiently to make bread wheat cultivation again pos- sible in even the worst saw- fly infested areas. The drought years of the 1930’s not only inflicted un- told hardship on the farm population but also resulted in notable changes in agricul- tural methods. It had long been the practice to plow the soil deeply and cultivate so as to produce a fine mulch on the surface. This was done on the assumption that the fine surface mulch prevented the loss of moisture through evap- oration. But in the dry years the wind blew away the fine surface soil with the result that much land in the open plains suffered excessively from wind erosion. Agricul- tural experts realized that til- lage practices must be changed. Deep plowing must be abandoned and replaced by shallow surface cultivation that permitted the retention of roots, stubble and other fibrous materials in the sur- face layer of the soil. For- tunately, the numerous manu- facturers of tilling imple- ments rapidly responded with the devising of a great variety of implements (disk, blade and rod cultivators) that permit- ted the cultivation of the soil with a minimum of disturb- ance of the surface layers. This is doubtless one of the developments essential to the maintenance of the future pro- ductivity of our soils. The story of Western agri- culture has been the story of rapid changes in tillage and harvesting practices. However useful these changes, they nevertheless have often cre- ated new problems for the Jarmer. Combine harvesting, as compared with harvesting by binder, tends to leave more weed seeds on the ground, thereby aggravating the weed problem. The chemical indus- try has, however, responded by the production of various types of weed killer of which pome of the newer types give promise of controlling even the wild oats that have be- come a major agricultural problem in recent years. The incorporation of stubble and ptraw in the soil, although eventually increasing fertili- ty, tends to make less nitrogen available to plants during its decomposition. This is one of the main factors in inducing farmers to apply fertihzer, which is essential in future, for, no matter how fertile the soil is initially it cannot forev- er retain that fertility under conditions of heavy cropping without some return of soil nutrients. The story of wheat in Can- ada would be incomplete in- deed if no mention were made of the problems of marketing, a subject requiring a book rather than a paragraph. Dis- satisfaction with the market- ing of wheat by privately controlled grain companies induced a cooperative move- ment among farmers of which the formation of the Grain Growers Grain Company, in 1906, and the Alberta Farmers Cooperative Elevator Com- pany, in 1913, was an expres- sion. These were amalgamated in 1917 to form the United Grain Growers Limited. This was the beginning of the co- operative movement, culmi- nating in the great ‘wheat pools’, that made it possible for the farmers to retain for themselves some of the pro- fits of marketing. Perhaps of even greater importance was the constant pressure of farm opinion on the Canadian gov- ernment which induced parlia- ment to pass the Canada Grain Act in 1911 which has pro- tected the interest of the farmer, and to establish the Board of Grain Commission- ers which has regulated all phases of the grain trade Jo the elevator by the farmer from the delivery of the grain to its delivery to the foreign purchaser. The high regard which Canadian grain holds in world markets is primarily due to the Board’s careful pupervision of every step in the marketing process. The final link in this process is of course the Canadian Wheat Board which in recent years fias negotiated the immense sales of wheat to the USSR, China and other countries. JULY22TO AUGUST7 The Pan American Games symbol represents an athlete welcoming all visitors of Can- ada for 1967. CORRECTION: The date in the cut line page 14 should be 1866 instead of 1886. Self propelled Combine.

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