The Imperial press., 1905-08-12
Forty Acres Enough

densed milk are annually skipped 10 thIs coast from the East.
 The market for these products in Southern California is daily increasing. Not more than twenty-five per cent of the amounts consumed in Southern California are produced here.
 Los Angeles as the center of Southern California is becoming the great Health, Wealth and Pleasure resort of the world.
 The present move of the city to secure 8 supply of 30,000 inches of water from the Owens River Valley is a guarantee that Los Angeles will in the near future become one solid city of homes from the Sierra Madre mountains back of Pasadena to the coast line that extends from Long Beach to Santa Monica. 4 This greater Los Angeles will soon contain population of upwards of one million people, and they will all use milk, butter and cheese.
 Where will the supply come from?
 The Imperial Valley.
 This is the only solution to that problem.
 It has been demonstrated that the Imperial Valley is the best dairy country on this coast. This is no dream.
 There is a right way and wrong way to run dairy ranch. There is money lost in keeping milk cows; and there are fortunes IT ade at the same business. The difference between making money at the dairy business, and losing it, is simply the difference between the right way and the wrong way.
 Some cows will produce $250 worth of milk or butter fat in a month, and others will produce from eight to ten dollars worth in the same length of time
 1t costs just as much to take care of g 50 COW as a ten dollar COW. A COW may give very rich milk but not much of it. Such COW may not pay. An
 
 milk that is not more than half as rich in butter fat; that COW may be a valuable one to keep.
 Humboldt County in this State is a great dairy country, but the land will not support more than one COW to two acres, and yet ii is worth $200 an acre. The Imperial Valley land will support two COWS to one acre just as readily. In Humboldt County it takes $400 worth of land to support one COW, and the owners of that land are all making money and becoming wealthy.
 On that basis of calculation what is land worth per acre in the Imperial Valley that will support two COWS to the acre? The mistake too frequently made by dairYmen is ill keeping poor cows.
 What is a COW worth? That depends on how much she can earn. A COW that costs twenty cents day to keep, and only produces fifteen cents worth of milk, isn't worth anything. It is an easy matter to ascertain the exact value of the milk output from COW. Only such cows should be kept as eau show good earning capacity.
 What can be done on forty acres?
 4 forty acre tract of land in the Im- perial Valley is the foundation for good money making dairy. One-half of such tract can be sown to alfalfa, and the other half can be devoted to grains and other purposes.
 That twenty acres of alfalfa will readily support sixteen COWS, and by carefully cutting the alfalfa and feeding the same, five COWS to the acre can be kept during the summer time-say nine months in the year.
 4 dairyman can start his business with twenty COWS, and gradually in- crease the number as he finds it ad- visable.
 If those twenty COWS are of the poor kind yielding only $250 worth of milk each per month, the man has an in- come of only $50 month, and there is no money in the business.
 If the cows have been carefully select ed for their earning capacity, they can