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Show V HOW TO FILL UP THE STATE. Probably the most impressive activity ac-tivity of Utah, considered with a view to fill up the state with productive, bread-winning people, is the work of the dry-farming men. They have demonstrated that all the sagebrush land is fertile; that on it can be raised wheat and oats and forage grasses. They have proved that they can make more money with wheat on dry land than can be made on the irrigated 1 lanTs. And the inves'ment "per acre ' . is vastly smaller. That seems to be the best means ot i redeeming the waste lands of the state. There will be big farms in the first place. Men of small capital can not now get the benefit of the situation. situa-tion. Professor Merrill states that they arc harvesting and threshing 75 acres a day on one of the big dry farms of Utah. The cost of raising a bushel of grain is much smaller there than on the irrigated farms. They will not get so many bushels of wheat per acre on the dry farm, but the clear profit will be greater. This truth is being demonstrated now in actual harvesting by the men who have invested money in machinery machin-ery and equipment for reclaiming the dry land. The state and the nation have made it possible for them to in crease the number of productive acres in the state. The importance of this victory can not be lost on the farmers farm-ers of the mid'dlc West. Those men will find that with the same investment invest-ment now involved in their quarter-Section quarter-Section farms in Indiana or Illinois, they can make vastly more money in Utah. And they will come to this a state. Our own farmers will also find that they can better sell a portion of their irrigated lands to newcomers, and put their capital into bigger dry farms. Tfiusboth will be benefited and the state will be filled with active, helpful help-ful and wealth-producing men. Millions Mil-lions of acres that have always been rated as desert will be reclaimed, and will produce food for an increased population here in Utah, besides a mighty and increasing surplus for tltc general market. For the present, dry farming will pay best with the 'big investment for machinery. For some years that will be the case. There will be many big farms. If Senator Smoot's bill per mitting entry of three hundred and twenty acres shall become a law, there will be big farms in every section sec-tion of the state. And then, in a few years the history of the Minnesota and Dakota big farms will be repeated. The desert will have been conquered. The soil will have been brought under subjugation. subju-gation. The secret of seeds for dry Lands, and the most profitable crops, will have been learned. And the big holdings will be cut up into smaller farms. A splendid beginning has been made. Let the farmers of the East be told of the. opportunities in Utah. Inter-Mountain Republican. |
