| Show THE OLD SETTLER dy by albert R lyman the big sagebrush belt extending from the la platta mountains in the state of colorado to the colorado river in utah was a great empire of farming people seven hundred yel beira rs ago their positive records rec as written still in gulches and prairies and on the faces of cliffs are sufficiently interesting to be read for the single charm of their antiquity but to the old settler their most practical value lies in the valuable message they bear to this or any succeeding generation with wisdom and ambition to make good homes among the ruins these old sagebrush farmers saw as readily as we see that the first essential for a home is water for culinary ul inary purposes the record of how they met this problem is still engrav ed d Indelli bly before us after the hange change and decay of seven centuries by each one of their homes is yet to be found their cisterns wherein they saved fron the wet seasons the precious ius element to tide over the dry months of course when it was possible they lived near a spring or a natural water hole in the rock and by such homes the old cistern is not so much in evidence in many a dry and thirsty place far from any permanent perma neat water is to be found the crumbling walls ot of old dwellings these places were not always thirsty for human thought and industry hed made them into human dwellings by thoughtfully conserving what nature had provided for that purpose when the old settler the first settler came to begin blanding in 1905 it was ivas a dry and forbidding prospect avith with no water to drink it was quite impossible then to lisua visualize lize a town of more than a thousand pe people 0 e with w aind good g 0 0 d homes ho m e s trees t re es green g r e en gardens a e ns a and 1 lawns a v ns a and n d th the e s sparkling p ar k 1 in g lement shooting in a glad spray from hydrants all around after watching the miraculous coming of these very things it was clear that the miracle would be repeated a thousand times in every direction for in a thousand places in every direction was still to be found the mute story of how human thought and industry had one once made this desert to become green and inviting and that ancient conquest of this esert desert was accomplished by a primitive unprogressive people we are able today with stores of valuable information and greatly improved methods and devices to excell ten times over everything which that sagebrush generation was successful in doing water can be caught or diverted into reservoirs or cisterns and holes can be cut in the rock to supply a home on atty desirable piece ot of ground in some places little springs are available or ditches can be made but however how everi it is done we can make home and comfort wherever revers they fought out their hard hand existence this sagebrush zoni zone is a chloice unique region it was thickly peopled once and it is sure to be again it needs only to be discovered to the despairing multitude who are already under the driving pre pressure ss r ure and necessity to lo b bring ri n them here without delay if they could be made to know of these possibilities |
