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Show NEW START WILL BE GIVEX TO STRANDED UTAH FARM FAMILIES BERKELEY, California, June 2 2 'Primitive living conditions in drought-sticken areas of Utah will be corrected by a Resettle-ment Resettle-ment Administration project which calls for the relocation ot 100 families on individual farms where they will be able to earn their livelihood. Jonathan - Garst, Resettlement Administration director for Utah, Arizona, California and Nevada, announced today $915,000 has been allocated for this purpose and for the purchase of an additional ad-ditional 4000 acres of submarg-inal submarg-inal land in Utah. A land use adjustment study of one problem area disclosed that $320 is the average annual income of farm families and that many of them are reduced to the use of tallow candles for household house-hold lighting. Children are oblig ed to go barefoot until cold weather wea-ther sets in. Telephones and other modern necessities are practically unknown, the report declared. Once a lively agricultural trading trad-ing center serving 1200 families, the town of Widtsoe in John's Valley, Val-ley, one of the problem areas, has been abandoned. Only 50 families fami-lies remain in the valley, which is 18 miles north of Bryce Canyon Can-yon National Park. A majority of the families were forced to go on relief. Failure of the water supply, combined with the short frost-free frost-free growing season, is blamed for the failure of agriculture in this region, the altitude of which is more than 7000 feet. One farmer reported he was able to obtain but one potato crop out of 12 plantings, due to frost and lack of water. Project plans call for the purchase pur-chase of 100 farm units totalling about 6400 acres. These will be selected in various parts of the state where the necessary farming farm-ing land is available. Families resettled on the units will be supplied with necessary farming equipment. They will purchase the land from the government on long-term contracts. Submarginal land purchased from the settlers by the government govern-ment will be returned to grazing, graz-ing, the use to w'hich it was put before the coming of the settlers. |