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Show I Idaho. Idaho will hail' this Christmas season with a great joy. For all her year"s work has been prosperous. pros-perous. Over many fair acres which were desert a year ago, the desert has vanished and the harvest har-vest come to gladden the tollers. She Is growing into a great agricultural state; in a few years more she will dispute for supremacy with many an eastern east-ern state which Ions lias been famous for nothing else so much as her fertile acres. The miracle of the waters. In more than one place the snags have been cleared from a river, and the channel deepened, and men have rejoiced that a way has been provided through which in. rude boats they could send their little harvests to market. It is different up in Idaho. There the great Snake river which through uncounted centuries has held its lordly way to whort4 it merges with the greater Columbia; its clear waters and impelling energy being the more accentuated by its blasted and dead banks, has been induced to forsake Its channel, to flow out upon the desert, to quicken It to life; to bring out its latent strength, so that those banks are now in their season clothed with emer- aid and gold. It is a transformation such as the wild tribes that built their rude wickiups on its banks and fished in Its blue waters for ages never dreamed of. And the land responds in a way that makes clear that It was retaining its strength and fertility, through all the centuries when man did not know how to reduce them to his use. Such grain, such fruits and flowers, such a luxurience of growth seem to bo so many voices speaking in reproacv of the ignorance of man that he has not sooner called in the right way to them to do their part. And there is a statlier flow to the great river in the autumn when its help is no longer needed, as though it was conscious that it henceforth hence-forth was to flow through green fields and hear the songs of happy children as It held its way to the sea. In a few years more with her harvests, her sugar, her fruit, Idaho could without other re- r ! sources become a greater and richer state than either of many famous agricultural states of the east But she has other sources of wealth, real wealth, which make sure a convenient market for the products of her soil. Her mines show no sign of failure. She has gold and silver and lead; within her own boundaries she is perfectly equipped equip-ped to support unassisted a great population, and to enable them to &row richer and richer as the years roll on. And her people are a strong, splendid race, alert in all fields of high endeavor, such as give assurance that in peace or war, everywhere and on all occasions will make such an accounting of themselves as will be an honor to their state and to their country. I : : , |