The grazing-forage belt as a whole, however, is not well suited to agriculture. Texas cattlemen, driving their herds through western Dakota to furnish beef for frontier military posts, saw its true value as a cattle country. The nutritive grasses and natural shelters make this an ideal cattle-raising section.
Among the earliest ranchers were the Deffenbach brothers, who opened a ranch in the extreme southwestern corner of the present State in 1878. Others soon followed, including soldiers who had finished their period of enlistment in the western Army posts and were eager to settle in the new land. Ranching of cattle and sheep became the industry of the western part of the State. As the natural range showed inroads of the new industry, dry-farming was introduced, the chief crops being forage for winter feed.
The land in the three North Dakota farm belts is still used primarily for the purpose for which it was settled. The leading spring wheat State, North Dakota is second only to Kansas in the total wheat production of an average year. Hard spring wheat, particularly marquis and ceres, is an important crop, commanding a premium on the market because of high gluten content. Three-fourths of the Nation's durum, a hardy wheat used in the making of macaroni, is raised here. During the period of 1924-33, North Dakota wheat production averaged 78,737,682 bushels a year. The State leads in rye and flax, and is outranked only by Minnesota in barley production. In production of grain seeds and cereal crops, respectively, the United States Department of Agriculture ranks North Dakota third and seventh.
Like the gold of the wheat, the blue of the flax flower has been part of the North Dakota picture since pioneer days. First planted for an immediate cash income, flax has proved an ideal secondary crop because it extends the seeding and harvesting periods, and since 1900 it has been an established part of the cropping system of the North Central States. One-half of the flax acreage in the United States is planted in North Dakota. As early as 1890, the State produced 458,117 bushels. By 1900, the figure was raised to 13,478,283 bushels, and the 10-year annual average for 1924-33 was 5,081,157 bushels.
Winter rye is extensively planted because of the protection it affords against erosion after a wet autumn. During the five years from 1927 to 1931, an average of 1,196,000 bushels was harvested in North Dakota.
A need for more feed crops for the cattle raised in the State has led to increased production of barley, oats, and emmer, grains which are used locally for feed. About 85 percent of the yield of barley is consumed by hogs and lambs. Barley is also useful as a clean-up crop in the control of annual weeds. The average annual production for 1924-33 was 27,227,284 bushels.
The same desire for an immediate cash crop which was the incentive to raise flax on the pioneer farms was largely responsible for the introduction of potatoes and sugar beets. Potatoes had almost always been raised for local consumption, but no effort was made to produce them in commercial quantities. Then a few enterprising farmers in the Red River Valley planted large acreages, and were successful in marketing the crops outside the State. Because of their high flavor, mealiness, and large uniform size, these northern potatoes command a premium on the market. One warehouse specializes in the shipping of hand-picked, wrapped potatoes, packed like apples or oranges, for sale to railways and other markets demanding fancy-grade potatoes. It is, however, for their seed value that North Dakota potatoes are noted. Their low fiber content makes them ideal seed stock, and under Federal and State supervision they are certified for this purpose. In 1934 North Dakota produced 6,140,254 bushels of seed potatoes. Exports that year totaled 8,390 carloads.
Experimentation showed that the soil which was good for northern potatoes was also excellent for sugar beets. The first crop of beets large enough to be listed in statistics for the State was 24,474 tons, harvested in 1924. By 1929 the tonnage had increased to 59,104. This is one crop which showed an increased production even in the dry year of 1934, when production totaled 82,304 tons, and beets were raised on 13,466 acres on 485 farms. When the industry was first introduced, most of the labor was performed by Mexicans. Under contract to beet farmers, trainloads of these people came north each spring. Not only did they work for very low wages, but they also developed a quality of work rarely equaled by white beet workers. The cultivation and weeding of sugar beets is done almost entirely by hand, a long tedious process in the blazing sun, which the Mexican worker seemed to mind not at all. In the fall, most of them would pack their families into second-hand cars purchased with their summer earnings, and return south. Difficulties of these workers in adjusting themselves to northern modes of living discouraged the use of Mexican labor, however, and today only a few of the larger farms still employ it. Most of the work is now carried on by local labor, often by school children. In driving through the Red River Valley, one can tell the farms on which sugar beets are a crop of many years' standing, for scarcely one of these is without an old tar-paper shack, a cook car remodeled into a house, or some other crude dwelling which was once the home of a family of Mexicans. In otherwise well-kept farmyards, where the buildings are comparatively modern, these laborers' dwellings are very decrepit and out-of-place.
Although not a cash crop like potatoes and beets, corn has become increasingly valuable in North Dakota. This is especially true in the southeastern part of the State, which is the hog-raising area of North Dakota. During the five-year period of 1927-31, the average annual corn production was 20,200,000 bushels. Only in rare instances does North Dakota corn reach the cash markets. It is not husked as in many of the Corn Belt States; instead, the hogs and sometimes the cattle are permitted to feed directly on the stocks in the field. This is known as the "hogging down" method of harvesting corn. About one-half the crop is cut annually for winter fodder.
Other feed crops are also important on the North Dakota farm. Many hay and pasture crops, especially red clover and alfalfa, can be successfully grown in the Red River Valley. In the western sections, alfalfa is raised for seed. Timothy and brome grass are also valuable grass crops in the eastern area.