GrainsWest Tech 2020

Tech 2020 grainswest.com 25 FROM BAREFOOT PLOWMAN TO EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER Born in State Center, Iowa, in 1873, Noble left school when he was 15 to help his widower father raise his five younger brothers. He established his own farm at Knox, North Dakota, in 1896, later leaving it to homestead near Claresholm in 1902. Reportedly, he was seen breaking land in his bare feet behind a plow pulled by three oxen and a horse. From this humble start, he relocated north of Lethbridge and over the following dozen years assembled the largest farming operation of its day in the British Empire. He farmed about 36,000 acres using as many as 600 horses until steam, and later gas-powered machinery, came on the scene. His farm headquarters grew and later became the village of Nobleford. The impressive farmwas hit by falling grain prices and drought conditions that produced successive poor crops. The downturn caused lenders to foreclose on a $600,000 debt. Bankrupt but undeterred, the resourceful Noble rebuilt his business over a handful of years. By 1930 he again farmed about 8,000 acres— still a good-sized operation even by today’s standards. Throughout much of his farming career, Noble championed soil conservation. According to author Grant MacEwan in his book Charles Noble: Guardian of the Soil , Noble observed the impact of soil loss due to wind erosion in the Dakotas around 1900 and later in southern Alberta during the severe drought years of 1910, 1918 and 1919. In the early 1900s, tillage was common practice on North American farms. “For generations the plow was the symbol of farming. Good plowing was good farming and good farming was good plowing,” wrote MacEwan. In the absence of herbicides, plowing was necessary to control weeds. Farmers also preferred the tidy aesthetics of black dirt fields. This preference was supported by certain leading agronomic advice of the day. This included people such as H.W. Campbell, a South Dakota farmer and author who promoted farming practices developed in England in the 1700s. In his widely read 1907 book entitled: The Soil Culture Manual , Campbell promoted multiple tillage operations to produce “dust mulch” on the soil surface as a supposed method to conserve moisture. Noble himself had been a follower of what later proved to be faulty advice. The dust storms Noble witnessed in his early farming days were a prelude to the drought years of the late 1920s and 1930s and prompted Noble to investigate conservation measures. He discussed such initiatives and worked with fellow farmers and researchers at the Claresholm School of Agriculture and the Dominion Experimental Station, which later became the Lethbridge Research Centre. All believed in improving soil conservation and worked together to tailor practices. Collaborators included Rufus Bohannon of Sibbald who experimented with “plowless summerfallow.” He used a duckfoot cultivator and harrows to control weeds. Charles Noble’s cultivation equipment has been adopted as an emblem of the town of Nobleford. Adjacent to this sign, the Nobleford Blade Park displays a range of Noble implements.