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Show J Great Milford Valley Can j j Support Vast Population j i (By Lorin Hall) EIGHTEEN yars ago, the writer in company with two officials of the U. S. Smelting Company, stood on the peak of a mountain overlooking Milford Valley. We were interested interest-ed in mineral, primarily.'1 However, Mr. Allen said to me. "Someday that stretch of land down there will pay dividends that will shame all the mineral wealth in these hills." The audicious prophesy made me smile. Had I then believed him, I could have owued 10,000 acres of that fine land, as it laid there year after year, smiling, beckoning to the believer. In the not distant future, Milford Valley will fulfill Mr. Allan's prophesy, proph-esy, not withstanding the millions of dollars worth of metal shipped from the mines of Beaver County. It somewhat depends upon the farmers who have been fortunate enough to acquire the land, and their ability to improve it, as to how soon the prophesy pro-phesy will be fulfilled, but the ultimate ul-timate results are sure. Farming, like any other occupation occupa-tion is a business details that may or may not lead to success. An abandon aban-don ranch; a ramshackle fence and a growth of thistle, marking the failure fail-ure of some unfortunate farmer, means nothing in the general scheme of development. These failures occur in every business. What the rancher and farmer needs to do, is find out what his land is best adapted to raise, and hold to that crop. Idaho ,each year sends to California Califor-nia thousands of car loads of potatoes. pota-toes. During the months of October-November-December-January. I shipped ship-ped 100 car loads of potatoes from Carbondale, Colorado to Los Angeles, anl the value o this one deal was over eighty thousand dollars. Carbondale Car-bondale happens to be hundreds of miles farther from Los Angeles, than Milford Valley. The money sent to Idaho from the California brokers for potatoes runs into several hundred hund-red thousands of dollars per year. Milford Valley is half the distance, and the freight rate can be made to be half that of Idaho. Idaho and Colorado spud growers couldn't begin be-gin to compete with Milford Valley spuds, if the farmers in Milford Valley Val-ley would wake up to their chances. However, spud growing is a business busi-ness farmers must learn. Farming is a business that requires attention and faithful work. Don't blame the land if you fail. No better soil was ever laid down than we have in Milford Mil-ford Valley, and to say that it can't be made to raise spuds, is as silly as it is untrue. But be it spuds or alfalfa or whatnot, what-not, the farmer should specialize and stick to his crop and learn how to make his land produce the wealth it should. Los Angeles is destined to become one of the greatest cities in the United States, and where shall they look for produce to feed the millions if not to Southern Utah? Good land, such as Milford Valley has, will never be a drug on the market mar-ket if properly tilled wake up farmers, farm-ers, for Los Angeles demands millions mil-lions of dollars worth of food crops each year and Milford Valley certainly certain-ly is ideally located to furnish much of what is needed. Good potato land In Colorado is worth $300 per acre; in Idaho from ?200 to $400 and well it might be, as often farmers take $200 to $1000 per acre from potatoes alone. I paid Charley Mow, of Carbon-dale, Carbon-dale, Colorado $800 per car for 14 cars of Russet-Burbank potatoes last December, and he sold 6 cars besides from fifty acres a small item of about $16,000 net to him. Potatoes, beans, and other crops tan be raised in Milford Valley as well as they can be raised In other suites, and with the great city of Los Angeles calling for increased shipments every year of these valuable valu-able food crops, Milford Valley should rise to meet the occassion and reap the harvest instead of allowing Idaho and Colorado to slip in and i take most of it. I Farmers should organize and study the situation and above all 'make sure what the land will pro-dui'f pro-dui'f and then, fire the guns with en-ercy en-ercy and knowledge as the result is sure. Haising spuds is not easy ,and yet jwlih proper study II can loon be mastered. Proper seed, irrigation at the right lime for even growth, plenty of cultivation between the rows so that ventilation can circulate; circu-late; also making sure the tubers are well covered from sunshine means everything. Green ends, sunburns sun-burns and crooks, mean failure. Year by year, spuds or beans cannot be beat, so this is a tip to Milford Valley Val-ley farmers, after S years of constant produce experience in which I have seen hundreds of farmers made rich. o Elder Orrice Murdock of Reaver who returned recently from a protracted pro-tracted mission in New Trahind and a tour of Europe, was a .speaker at Sunday night service at L. 1). S. church of Milford. |