Roseburg review. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 1885-1920, 1885-07-03
WHAT WE LAUK.
A Letter From Member Of the Iowa
Press Excursionists.

May he allowed to say word through
your extensively read paper to the farmers
of your great state? Through the courtesy
of the railroad companies ] have been per-
mitted to ride through its entire length from
north to south I have looked over your
beautiful valleys from practical farmers
been spent ON the farm. Born and raised on
a farm, among the rocks and the hills of New
Hampshier, and then for the last thirty years
on one in Iowa, claim that unless 1 have
been very dull student / should know
something of farming.
Unless I am greatly mistaken the farmers
of your state are having something of the
same experience that was SO bitter to thous-
ands of our Iowa farmers in not very recent
years. The great aud fascinating idea with
many was wheat raising. Coming mostly
from the New England states, where the
grain crops were always small, the ease with
which extended acres could be cropped with
grain carried most of the pioneer farmers off
their feet, and they continued i'll the grain
raising business until many lost their farms.
Some eight or ten years ago we began to ag-
itate the stock and dairy idea among our
wheat growing farmers and those who had
enough left from the wheat failures to get
few good cows and go into dairy farming are
now out debt and are getting ahead in the
world
The COW and the tame grass have saved
thousands of Iowa farmers from utter bank
ruptcy. 1t has struck me while riding over
| your fine valleys SO admirably adapted to
mer, 1000 miles nearer market, can not raise
wheat only at loss that the Oregon farmer,
in this grand climate so wonderfully favora-
/ bic to the manufacture Of cheese and butter
might possibly be making mistake in con-
| tinuing to hold on to the old time habit of
grain raising. We have to-day III Iowa over
500 creameries where butter is made from the
cream gathered by teams from the farmers
for radius of fifteen miles and upwards
around them. Aside from these there are
large numbers of cheese factories that make
cheese aud butter. Then again the number
of private farm dairies is legion, swelling the
dairy product of our state to an amazing
amount.
The product is always cash, and as rule
very remnneratiye and sure. Another thing
in favor of dairy farming is the fact that the
Iairx farm, a ~ q COG -, fart1; xub II,
grain raising is always depicting. Your
nonntain streams and springs, yonr cool
moist climate and your luxnriant growth of
ciovers, all tend to make these valleys of
Oregon the very paradise of the dairyman
Your distance from the great markets of the
world gives q tremendous emphasis to the
istea Of putting much value la pound of
product as possible. 1t costs but very little
Liverpool than it does pound of wheat.
The farmer must always remember that he
must pay the freight from the farm to the
market, be that market where it may. With
the dairy will come the improved hog and
the steer. and with these comes more and
richer grass, and this means more stock, and
mole stock means Independence, and with
this comes schooling, refinement and good
society.
l DO not say you do not now have refine
ment and good society in Oregon, but / am
writing for my fellow farmers. have passed
through all the privations of pioneer life.
| II. Al
ago made small beginning, for seventeen
years lived in my little fourteen-foot pre-.
emption log cabin, and it was the cow and
the milk pail that lifted me out of 1t. If
read rightly what have seen in your state
there are thousands of farmers who can see no
way to pay the debts hanging over them
and send their children to school. with grain
at present prices. l sympathiZe with these
hardy men, and frankly say can see but
little hope for them unless they follow the
steps of their Iowa brothers and turn from
grain to dairy and stock. This is safe and
sure. Itmay be slow at first, but in the enc
there will be no disappointment.
The natural growth Of your towns and the
increase of manufacturing industries which
would seem for your abundant water pswel
and inexhaustable stores of fuel inevitable
will give ready market near at home fo
the dairy products of your farms. Pordor
me if | have been too forward in the expires
sion of my views but so intensely am enlis-
ted on the side of the best good of the farm
and the farmers families could not well re
sist the desire to give the farmers of thes
grind valleys the benefit Of the expercnc,
we of Iowa have gone through.
AS member of the press excursionists
tender You my sincere thanks for the cordia
good will and welcome you have shown us
Our visit among your people will be tn
event of our lives to many Of US.
L. S. COFFIN.
Fort Dodge, iowa.
The Idaho postmaster who stol
$4,000 and then fed into Canada, i