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Show djsi 1 ' Tha transcontinental lailroads have always played and always will play an important part in building up of the great West and Southwest. There h still a big undeveloped area that we see in riding from the Missouri River to the West Coast; and looking look-ing back, we marvel at the courage and hope of the pioneers who sponsored sponsor-ed the building of the railroads through the desolate country, from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast, keeping in mind also that not so.veiy long ago, Red Oak, Iowa, was hi the so-called great America desert. The building of the Pacific railroads rail-roads was subsidized to some extent by the Federal Government, largely in land grants, and it looked like the more land they had, the poorer they were; although in recent years some of the roads have been greatly enriched enrich-ed through their holdings of original grants. The promise of financial returns re-turns at the outset depended on tying "ogether the populated and productive produc-tive East with the rapidly growing Pacific- Slope country. The diseov-:-y of gold in California had its influence in-fluence in railroad building and in populating that section. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific formed the first connecting link between the Eust and the West j and in discussions and deliberations concerning the construction of what we know as the Union Pacific, reference refer-ence was made to the Union of the Pacific With construction completed, a definite and active campaign was started by the railroads to develop the vast; land area traversed. To record the trials and tribulations of the early settler would take too much time and space but the transcontinental rail-i rail-i roads were actually behind every effort ef-fort to colonize and to assist the lo- cater In making a living on the soil and it was a good business to do so. ; Especially low rates and fares were ' made on seed grain supplied and in many other ways aid was given to the pioneers by the railroad. The surface had hardly been scratched so to speak as to the development dev-elopment of an enormous land area ; most of which depends upon the avail-, avail-, ability of water for agricultural pur-' pur-' poses but even in the sections that aro regarded as highly developed and prosperous, there are still many problems prob-lems to solve. The most important one with the respect to production and continued use of the soil where water is abundant lies in adequate replenishment re-plenishment to maintain soil fertility ( because we can no more continue to take out of the soil without replenish-I replenish-I ing than we can continue to draw on . our bank account without depositing. Impoverished soil soon shows its effect ef-fect in decreased volume and quality of production, limiting the distribution distribu-tion and amount to be distributed and transported. We recognize this when we consider that the superior quality has the greatest distributing possibilities. possi-bilities. So far as history records, live stock has been the chief means of farm fertilization. fer-tilization. 11 is not only the most available av-ailable but the most practical and economical. ec-onomical. Besides, live stock furnish-1 furnish-1 es a means of diversification and a convenient and definite way of getting get-ting cash needed. Ability to find ready sale, especially with the small live stock producer was not always the case but since open markets have been established at Ogden, Salt Lake, Spokane, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, all producers have an open forum for the ready marketing of their production. Coming back to the railroads, the Western railroads should and doubt-leas doubt-leas will, with the proper understanding, understand-ing, lend their support to the building build-ing up of production because it means additional tpnnage. It seems especially es-pecially desirable that they should assist as-sist not only our agricultural schools but exhibitions of agricultural products pro-ducts and live stock because these events are so inspiring and encouraging encourag-ing to better production and our transportation trans-portation agencies should also sponsor spon-sor the junior effort in live stock production pro-duction and judging. Successful agriculture never has and, based upon the past, never will succeed without live stock association. It was good business for the railroads to build the West and it is good business busi-ness for them to continue to take a leading part in building up and stabilizing stab-ilizing every agricultural endeavor. |