H. W. Campbell came from Vermont to northern
South Dakota in 1879, where in 1882 he harvested a banner
crop,--twelve thousand bushels of wheat from three hundred acres. In
1883, on the same farm he failed completely. This experience led him
to a study of the conditions under which wheat and other crops may
be produced in the Great Plains area. A natural love for
investigation and a dogged persistence have led him to give his life
to a study of the agricultural problems of the Great Plains area. He
admits that his direct inspiration came from the work of Jethro
Tull, who labored two hundred years ago, and his disciples. He
conceived early the idea that if the soil were packed near the
bottom of the plow furrow, the moisture would be retained better and
greater crop certainty would result. For this purpose the first
subsurface packer was invented in 1885. Later, about 1895, when his
ideas had crystallized into theories, he appeared as the publisher
of Campbell's "Soil Culture and Farm Journal." One page of each
issue was devoted to a succinct statement of the "Campbell Method."
It was in 1898 that the doctrine of summer tillage was begun to be
investigated by him.
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