The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1895-03-23
The Arid West.

with tnaC passion lot tuFOWiHR oiu 10
at the Great Western half ofthe United
States which controls many Of the east
ern goldbug papers, the Toledo Blade
publishes the following editorial para
graph
Large tracts of farming and fruit
land In Alabama have been sold receni-
ly to farmers from Northwestern states.
It would be better for all concerned if
the farmers who are starving by inches
on the arid regions of the West, would
all go South, and abandon the dry belt
to it's fate"
1t is either inexcusable ignorance OF
the character of the country contained in
the arid regions or it is malice which
causes such paragraphs to be written or
posi- bly, both ignorance and malice. Ii
one were to ask the writer Of this squib
to locate the arid regions referred to he
would probably mention Western Kan
sas and Western Nebraska aud it is
true that there is a region east OF the
Rocky Mountains where the people de-
pend upon rainfall to grow crops, where
such failures as that of last year lead to
great suffering. But this region is al
most the center of the United States and
is neither properly the arid regions nor
the Great Northwest. In the arid re-
gions rainfall is not relied upon to grow
crops and where proper provisions are
made for irrigation, failures to secure
bountiful harvests are almost unknown
or occur much less frequently than in
Alabama or Ohio.
Alabama is a great and productive
state--the Pennsylvania of the South.
Her wealth in coal and iron is almost
inexhaustable. She has areas of fine
agricultural lands: yet from the Ten
nessee line to the Tallapoosa river
there is scarcely an acre of land that
will compare in productiveness with an
average acre under cultivation In all
the arid regions between the British
and Mexican boundaries. Where our
ranchers are cutting ten tons of alfalfa
from one acre, the average Alabama
farmer is stripping half ton, or less
of fodder from an acre of corn, planted
in rows FIVE feet apart each way and
one stock to the hill, or pulling crab
grass from between the rows with his
hands to obtain little forag rough
ness,n he calls tito keep his mules
alive to help him make the next crop.
One will 6Ed all over the state, thous-
ands upon thousands of acres Of aband-
oned land grown up in sassafras and
persimmon bushes which half dozen
crops of cotton had exhausted; and
thousands of other acres of red clay,
with occasional thickets of plum bushes
on them, from which every particle of
soil has been washed. With the ex-
ception of cotton, yams and COOLERS,
there is not a propuct in which the
any portion of the arid region. AS for
fruit, she cannot even make preten-
tion to compete, except in the one item
of peaches. AS for healthfullness and
comfort of climate and freedom from
miasmatic and malarial affections, any
portion of the arid West is paradise
beside the good agricultural sections of
Alabama.
Yet, leaving the greater portion of
West. which covers eleven great states
and ter riteries, amy one of which isdoub-
le the size of Alabama, and confne our
comments to the single State of Idaho,a
peer among them all and let any
Northwestern farmer visit Alabama
and Idaho, and carefully examine lands
productions and climate, and We will
venture to assert that not one in
thousand of them will give the former
state his preference.
Let the writer of that paragraph 60
to Cincinnati and Louisville and see the
train loads of corn, potatoes, bacon and
other farm products daily going to Ala
bama and nothing bnt cotton and pea
nuts coming back and then let him re-
turn to Chicago and see the fruits, veg
etables, grain and hops arriving from
Idaho and other states in the arid re-
gions, and mark their superiority over
the same products raised in Ohio and
he will forever stop his silly talk about
abandoning the ARID regions.
Let him come and make his home in
Owyhee county for one year and see
hundred thousand sheep and great
herds of horses and cattle hunting their
own feed on our plains all winter,
which would starve were they not fed
during three months in the year in Ala