Show the old settler written from salt lake city my dear san Jua ners the most sincere efforts men make are the efforts they make with the sole object of benefiting their friends I 1 have but one hope in offering these things to y you ou that is to see you enjoy the full advantage of what is within your reach as dwellers in a favored country I 1 may not get there with my tangible being to see it accomplished plis shed bed all the same I 1 shall see it though I 1 come back as the ancient san come back both when we wake and when we sleep to see what modern men have made of their once fertile fields it is about these old san and their fertile fields that I 1 want to write this morning the old san whose bedraggled remnant made their final exit about years ago this fall how do I 1 know it was then of course want to know that but it make the least bit of difference with what I 1 am going to tell what I 1 want to lo get over to you is that they lived there and they fought their way through fiercer droutha than any we have known since we landed there in 1880 in their time they had no way as we have of getting foodstuff from distant places they had no roads no cars no telephones nor radios they had no steam nor electric power no farming mach machinery not even a steel shovel or hoe or rake not a horse nor even a biagro to ride or to work nor to carry their burdens they carried their loads on their backs and they dug their living out of the ground with their hands and all they had with which to dig was sticks that had been worn blade like on the end when we consider that with such equipment as this they lived in san juan by the tens of thousands we must concede to ourselves that they were working with a soil that was fertile and they knew the fine secret of currying its favor for a generous response how did they do it the very thing I 1 am rearing to tell if a man had four acres of ground and four acres was quite a farm for an individual at that t time ime he continued on page four the old settler continued from first page saved at least four acres of rainfall and sometimes more all the rain and snow that fell on his ground belonged to him and he made it his business to keep it eve every ry bit of it if there was any vacant ground above him he be contrived to appropriate all the water that fell there every f farmer a r m e r terraced his ground making level banks along the slopes and one dam above another across every draw so that the water stopped right where it fell many of these dams across the draws are still plainly traceable thus each square foot of their ground got every inch of water that heaven sent down to it and their corn their squash their potatoes and other plants were enabled to live where with all our modern machinery and wondrous devices for cultivation they perish for water many of our ra rains ins come with a fush gush on our fields and rush away in in floods cutting ugly gullies not so with them quite often our snow goes the same way from the very place where it is needed but these old san forestalled any such unnecessary loss once in august after some heavy showers I 1 went hopefully to look at my dry corn crop it was burning the rain water had run off of it as quickly as it came cutting unsightly washes in the plowed land over in it however I 1 saw a place where the corn was tall and green when I 1 examined that spot of ground I 1 f found that it was one of the little reservoirs prepared by the old san years before it had been prepared to insure the life of corn in san juan and it was still serving its purpose if I 1 had been as wise as those farmers of seven centuries ago I 1 would have had my ground covered with terraces and dams and all parts of it would have been as fresh and green as the littile spot for nature had sent plenty of rain we still have and have had all along plenty of rain but we dont know what to do with it the U S department of agriculture issues bulletins on terracing farm lands showing how t to 0 combat drouth and wind by holding all the water where it falls instead of leaving it to whittle away the surface while the crops crop s burn up with thirst yours for the good of san juan ALBERT R LYMAN |