The Glenwood post., 1906-03-17
THE pROBLFM
OF THE RANGE
Discussion Dealing With the Past,
Present and Future of the
SO-Cdlled Great American
Desert
IMPROVED SEED GRAINS FOR FUTURE

The dictum that the range must 90
has appeared in print regularly of late
years and yet the latest government
figures at hand give .he remaining
free range in the United States at
300, 600, 600 acres This would in
dicate that there remains time enough
for us to readjust our affairs against
the time when the range shall have
passed into history Generally
speaking, however, it is Just as
foolish to endeavOr to fix the time
when the range shall be no more as it
is to assert that no change in con-
dition will take place. Changes are
taking place all the time and perhaps
in nothing more than in range con
ditions. The shifting of the scenes
has taken place already and the
matter can safely be spoken of in the
past tense for the range with some of
us has gone, at least as it has been
known in the past. Some of the de
tails of the going yet remain to be
attended to, but there is no time to
spare in adjusting ourselves to the
new state of affairs There are few
who profess to believe that the change
is only temporary. that the settlers
will have to leave whenever the
moisture pendulum swings to the
other extreme and that they will get
the range back but this is nothing
more than whistling to keep up
courage. Such forget for the moment
that the change is Il national rather
than local one, that it is wave
carrying us closer to new order of
things, that the innate thirst for land
which is everywhere manifest is the
logical effect of cause over which no
individual or set of individuals has
any control. They forget that our
great public domain, as it has been
known, has ceased to exist that u.s.
the areable part of lt-that population
is continually increasing and that the
inevitable result of an exhausted
supply and an ever-increasiug demand
must be still greater rush for every
acre of productive land and con
tinual and steady increase in values
1t requires but primary knowledge of
economies to figure this out and what
ever the future may hold for the west
it contains possibility of return to the
good old days. Still l am not one of
those who profess to believe that the
rainhelt is galloping westward at
breakneck speed We have tried to
believe that nature laws are being
repealed ard new enactments with
emergency clauses attached are being
lobbied through for our special bene
fit, but somehow or other when these
measures come up to the supreme
court of past experience for final ad
Indication they do not hold water, at
least not enough to be of much i'm
mediate help in series of years such
as we have often passed through
The storage of surface water in
draws, the evaporation of these and
artesian waters, the planting of trees
and alfalfa-all will have effect, but
how much we cannot tell, and those
who make a living by studying
meteorological sciences give but very
little weight to such theories. There
is not enough of positive evidence on
this point to warrant any one in
doing anything more than speculat
ing. Harboring these little skepti-
cisms, however, does not prevent us
from believing in the future of the
arid region and tC discIedit the
prophesy that it will ultimately re
vert to the conditions that were. We
are now a good deal in the same po-
sition as the pig that climbed the
tree. If there were a few more states
like eastern Dakota, Minnesota. Iowa.
etc lying around awaiting settlement
there would be little excuse for
farmers to tackle the range, but as it
is, it is that or nothing and it is for
the people who settle there to adapt
themselves to the country as it is,
rather than to twist the country
around to what they would like to
have it, or to put on colored glasses
and persist in seeing it in the wrong
light. The surplus population must
of necessity go to the land for sub.
sistence, and if we cannot get land as
we want it, we will have to take
land as we can get it and then make
the most of it. This is about where
we are now. We cannot run away
from the problem and it will be
solved in time, as are all others. AS