Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1896-02-13

good, better, best, according to how
we'll our farming and watering has
been done l have many times thought
that il l could lrriRate the prices up
as readily as can lrrigate the crops
up. great would irrigation be, indeedI
You have been told, year in and
year out, Of the beauties Of irrigation,
and as you have listened to the glib
oratory, it has seemed to you an easy
thing to irngate land, but l have
tried to tell you that it takes good
hard work, takes patience, and it
takes skill and brain work to get your
water supply and then to use so that
the best results and profits will follow
l am here to tell you, also, that if you
will only persevere, your skill, your
work, your patience, will have their
ample reward
When l look back over the past
twenty years, and see the increase of
our population and consequent COM
petition for all prizes, either in labor
or business, I want to say to you, my
farmer friends, that your children,
twenty years from nov, will thank
their parents more for their holdings
of land than we do our parents, for
all history shows that as the popula-
ton of a country increases, wages and
interest go down, but value of land
goes up So beware how you part
with or neglect that kind Of properly
that has in all times been, il not al
ways the most remunerative, certain
ly the most secure. 1t is better thar
bonds and mortgages, because you
hold your own security. The i'm
provements you put on the land are
yours, also, and the best improvement
that you can make is to get it ready
to irrigate.
Begin IN small way, and as you
learn to do your work properly, you
will continue the work. Even II you
succeed in getting an adequate supply
for only three, five or ten acres, there
will be many years when that acreage
will be your malnstsY and will count
for more than the balance Of your
eighty or one hundred acres.
Now, am not saying to you, "All
that is necessary is the water supply"
or that you can learn how to use the
water in the best and most profitable
way all at once, or even In the first
year. Even with those valuable aids,
The Irrigation Age and the KANSAS
FARMER, experience WILL help you
most in using water as in every other
occupation.
Our lands in western Kansas are
cheap, and therefore the world has
little respect for them. The irrigable
lands Of all Kansas will, in the near
future, be far more valuable than the
best non-irrigable lands Of Illinois or
Iowa. The manufactures can now
give us machinery that enables us to
irrigate our lands at q cost less than
what our Illinois friends have thought
a good investment in tile draining
alone. When you consider the re-
suits of irrigation as compared with
draining Except in the case Of swamp
lands), the advantage is greatly in
favor of the western Kansas lands.
hope, in giving you some Of our
experience in developing this, as / am
told, the largest individual irrigation
enterprise in the state, l have not I'm.
duly discouraged you. l meant only
to show you that in acquiring an irri-
CATION plant, it is necessary also to
acquire experience, aud this, like the
experience gained in all other deslr-
able kinds of business