This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Murtey Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/AQB.2ACI/223 Message Board Post: Plattsmouth Journal, Thursday, January 11, 1917 HON. JOHN MURTEY CHAIRMAN OF THE BANKING COMMITTEE >From Wednesday’s Daily. The organization of the committees of the state house of representatives at Lincoln has been completed and among the important committees, our representative, John MURTEY, of Alvo, has been assigned to the chairmanship of the committee on banks and banking, one of the leading committees of the house. Mr. Murtey is a gentleman well qualified for this position as he has been interested in banking at Clay Center and Harvard, as well as being a business man of rare judgment and a forceful and able man, whose grasp of public questions well fits him for the position as member of the lawmaking body of the state. This is the first term of Mr. Murtey and he has taken hold of the situation in earnest to see that his constituents are looked after as they should be. Mr. Murtey has taken a clear position on the car shortage question, which has caused the farmers and grain dealers a great deal of annoyance, and will be heard from further on this matter before the session of the legislatu! re is over. His selection as chairman of the committee on banks and banking is a worthy recognition of a most deserving gentleman and the house has made no mistake in his selection. The following is an essay by John Murtey about Turkey wheat. Plattsmouth Journal, Thursday, January 9, 1919 THE CROP THAT MADE SOUTHERN NEBRASKA JOHN MURTEY, OF ALVO, TELLS OF THE COMING OF TURKEY WHEAT HERE TOO COLD FOR SOFT WHEAT And When Harder Variety Was Introduced It Proved a Boon to Farmers of Vicinity. Forty-seven years ago, the wild deer could be seen running on the prairie in the river counties east of Lincoln. That year (1871), the home-steaders raised small patches of winter wheat in the river counties south of the Platte. That year, spring wheat, the few acres harvested, made 10 to 15 bushels to the acre. The fall wheat made 25 to 30 bushels. The preceding winter was very mild and the soft variety of winter wheat that has always been a success for the south (the only variety known at that time) lived through the winter. Every homesteader that could buy a bushel of winter wheat, paid a premium of 50 cents a bushel over the price of spring wheat to get a few bushels of the winter wheat for seed. The next winter, the winter of 1871-72, it all winter killed. The homesteaders then discovered that winter wheat of the soft variety was a failure nine years out of ten anywhere north of the line sixty miles south of the north Kansas line. This is true today. In central Kansas about the year 1880, they got a new variety of wheat called “Turkey wheat,” and the farmers tried it. They paid very little attention to it there at the time. Central Kansas was making a success of raising soft wheat. They were too far south for winter killing of any kind of wheat, but they sowed small pieces of the new “Turkey wheat.” They could pasture it, and they said it would stand almost anything. The common saying among central Kansas farmers was: “Turkey wheat is as tough as rye. You can’t kill it.” It gradually worked north in Kansas and then to Nebraska. It has made the north half of Kansas a good farming country. It has made south of t! he Platte and a small strip north of the Platte in Nebraska a profitable wheat growing country. It ripens with few exceptions before the hot winds come up from Oklahoma and Kansas. It has only been winter killed once in the last twenty-eight years, and that was two years ago when the country was covered with a coat of ice that smothered it out. It is the surest and best crop we have, especially in the South Platte country, from Lincoln to the Colorado line. As our cultivated lands grow older, and our corn crops are gradually becoming lighter, Turkey wheat continues to hold its own both in yield and quality. We always get the fall rains to bring it up in the fall, and we get the spring rains in the spring that brings us a fair growth and brings out the heads. When we have a fair growth of straw and the crop is headed out, we need comparatively dry weather and sunshine to check the growth of the straw and develop and mature the berry, and as our dry weather usually sets in the last of June, we usually have ideal conditions for ripening our winter wheat. That is the reason that the rich, moist lands of Illinois are poor wheat land. The great bulk of wheat the world over with few exceptions, is raised in the semi-dry countries. Plowing for Turkey wheat should be done in July and not later than August 15. Ground plowed four inches deep and harrowed down in hot weather, no matter how cloddy, will pulverize in September. It will not do so if plowed in late, cool weather. The early plowing yields 3 to 5 bushels more to the acre than late plowing. This is one item in favor of heading wheat with a header, as they do in Kansas. It goes immediately into the stack and when they are through heading they can commence plowing. The small threshing machine pulled by a small tractor that our farmers are getting in Nebraska now so that every two or three farmers will do their own threshing as soon as it is in the shock may help us to get the shocks off the ground early so that in the future we can get our plowing done earlier and increase our yield. A peculiar thing about Turkey wheat is that in western Nebraska, and the west half of Kansas, where rainfall is light and no dews, the berry is dark in color. In eastern Nebraska, where there is more moisture in the atmosphere and wheat stands in the shock waiting for the threshing machine, it is a yellow berry. The dark wheat yields one pound more flour to the bushel and makes a stronger flour. The government recognized this fact and when they fixed the price of wheat they made the price higher on dark Turkey wheat. Before the government fixed the price, there was a premium in all markets of from 3 to 8 cents a bushel on dark wheat. Some millers, who were wanting to build up or hold their flour trade would bid very high for dark wheat. At present prices one pound more flour would make about 5 cents a bushel more value. Our farmers in the south Platte country should sow two-thirds of their land in wheat and the balance one-third corn, etc. This would give them a chance to some extent to rotate their crops and yet have the bulk of their land in the best paying crop. Turkey wheat has in the past 25 years saved the south Platte country. It has brought up land to $75 per acre in the western dry belt, and to $250 an acre in the river counties. All argument against raising wheat from 50 miles north of the Platte river, where it begins to get too cold and the hard varieties of wheat winter kill, to the Kansas line, when boiled down, simply vanish. They say binders are high. Binders sold in normal times at around $100, in war times $200. A binder lasts eight years, cuts one thousand acres. Twenty bushels to the acre binder costs in war times 1 cent per bushel. Normal times 6 ¼ cents a bushel. The entire farm work of raising wheat commences July 1 at harvest time. The seeding should be done by September 20. At that time of year farmers have no other crops except alfalfa hay that require their attention. If they did not raise wheat, they would have nothing to do at this time of the year, so the actual cost of labor to the farmer is very small. But we hear the farmers say, “I would rather raise and feed stock” Raising wheat does not interfere at all with raising and fattening stock. The work comes at a time of the year when we are not fattening cattle. We can buy cattle and corn and feed and make profit on feeding the same as an eastern Kansas, northern Missouri and southern Iowa feeder does. They buy our corn from northern Nebraska, the Dakotas and Minnesota and pay more for their cattle and corn laid down at the railroad station than we would have to. Northern Nebraska, the Dakotas and Minnesota are gradually raising more corn. The corn belt is moving north. Their climate is too cold to feed stock profitably in winter time. We can always buy their corn cheap in the fall and early winter, the same as other people do. We can feed all the stock we want to at a profit and still keep the bulk of our farm land raising big crops of Turkey winter wheat. JOHN MURTEY