A Mass-production Farmer

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 9, 11 January 1936, Page 5

A Mass-production Farmer

Thomas D. Campbell, of Montana, U.S.A., is the biggest grain-grower i* the world and probably the mos efficient. Ho hoe a 95,000-n.to wiea and 4m (linseed) f»™ which he has made pay throughout the d ®P ressl °“: When wheat-growers of Amenca were crying for dollar wheat, he told, commissions of enquiry that he could make wheat-growing pay at 50 cent a bushel (2s Id). He crops with a great fleet of caterpillar tractors of 60 h.p. apiece. They work night and day at the busy seasons and movable camps trail up the work. At these camps are three shifts of cooks and meals <*re available at all hours. The implements are specially harnessed up so as to make full use of the powerful traction available, drills sowing one chain strips at a Russia started on the second Five Year Plan, the Soviet authorities oaid T. D. Campbell to visit Russia and advise them. His fee was 1,000 dollars a day and all expenses from the time be left his home until he returned there. During the Great War he harvested 200 000 acres of wheat in one season for a reputed crop of 4,000,000 bushels, that equals approximately half New Zealand’s yearly production. . _ No man has carried mechanisation or farming to a higher degree. His methods are reminiscent of those of a mass-production factory rather than those of farming. Such methods in such degree upon so great a scale could only bo employed upon suitable country. That country he has taken up, on the Montana plains; a light soil, easily cultivated, rolling downs country, ideal for his purpose. ______