The Iola register., 1901-08-30
Another Letter
Cooper, Okla, Aug. %. 1901.

cooper, Okla., Aug. -, 1901.
1t is too blamed wet to work so |
will put in little more time writing
and tell you something of the climate
and soil.
The climate is simply fine and
think Cooper will become health
resort. 1t reminds me more of the
climate in the Rockies in Colorado
and the Sierra Madra mountains in
Old Mexico than any other place | ever
Travelled. Here, as there, the sun
shines hot, but the moment the clouds
obscure his rays it becomes nice and
cool and if you are not working on
cloudy day you will certainly hunt up
coat. Indeed this morning looked
out of the front window (of my tent
and saw Allen Riggs walking up main
street with his long overcoat on; but
he was out to Mountain View yester-
day and may have struck some ice
water.
The nights are delightfully."- cool and
comfortable mean comfortable if
you have plenty of blankets to sleep
under. Your little light spreads are
not in evidence here-no use for them.
The soil is simply good. Some of
it is almost as red as Major Foust's
house was last year. Some being
mixed with the dark element would
pass for mulatto, underlaid with a
porous subsoil and we aretold no mat
ter how much it rains it goes into the
ground without doing any damage
and if it fails to rain for fortnight
the sub-irrigation keeps crops from
suffering. Coming as we did from the
sun burnt plains of the north and into
these beautiful valleys where the blue
stem and blue joint grass is from two
to three and ha,f feet high. and some
even four feet, makes contrast so
great as to be almost ineXpressible,
unless | express 1t as our worthy
townsman, Billy Davis, the quondam
miller, when we went upon the noun
tain top and feasted our eyes on the
beautiful valleys, carpeted with verdure
and different ranges of mountains
rearing their majestic heads heaven
wards. He just yelled out; "Whoopee!
Don't it beat the devil?" The short
grass consists mostly of Mosquito and
Buffalo grass. The long grass mostly
Blue Stem and Blue Joint The latter
| believe, would make molasses as it
is about as sweet as sugar cane or
sorghum. This certainly has been the
cattleman's paradise. They are 10th
to leave it, Thousands OF cattle are
still grazing here and nearly every
day come into town and are as fat as
mud; plenty of grass here for thous-
ands more. The cowboys and In
dians come in every day and seem to
like us. They spend considerable
money at our stores. Lone Wolf has
visited us time or two, also some
blanket Indians come in. But they
would like for the white man to get
out. OF this will say more later.
While speaking of the soil | desire
to say that there is no doubt but what
this will develop into one of the finest
agricultural countries on earth ii crops
are not destroyed by too much rain.
ran on to an old army comrade
several days ago who has been nere
nearly ten years and some one in the
crowd said 81 wish it would rain"
and he said, "dou't wish for it to rain
for if it starts to rain you'll pray for
it to stop"
Hundreds of tons of the finest hay
could be put up right here but not
pound is in sight. They say it cures
nicely on the ground and is just as
good for stock as if made into hay
will keep stock nice and fat all the
winter through and is less expensive.
This seems to be the lazy mans
stronghold and if few loaves of
bread would grow on the trees beans
do they'd be fixed. But ! see this
letter is going to be too long and I'll
desist and give you another for to-
morrow. SMELTzER.