The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1908-07-04

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him until he reached his majority. He had just as
much faith in the country then as he has today and
expressed himself feeling that the opportunity is
greater today than it was then.
1t required a sublime sort of courage to farm here
in those days Irrigation untried experiment
and the with the foresight and nerve to try and
make the soil produce laughed at for fool by
the cattle men who ranged over the entire country
and grew wealthy off of the fat of the land How
untrue was their prediction the day demonstrates.
The agriculturist is the of wealth today, the
man, who controls the valley, while the ranger al
most forgotten is pushed to the barren foothills.
Twenty-one years ago the great valley of the
Upper Snake desert almost uninhabited. No
market for the crop after it was produced. The
farmer frequently trying in vain to sell enough of
his grain to pay the low tax rate There
Idaho Falls then with the present splendid cash
markets for all that the land produces The little
settlement of Eagle Rock could not consume the
little which the farmer produced and he was often
desperately pushed for little ready cash.
There bridges across the Snake river
with the exception of the at Blackfoot and the
one here Mr.. Taylor hung to it. He had the faith
which makes men win Difficulties but strengthened
his determination.
The result stoday three hundred acres in potatoes
one Of the finest improved farms in the entire north
west Two immense stone warehouses to store his
crop, of fifty and the other of thirty capacity
His farm in the best of condition and produc-
today than ever
In sizing up the situation Mr. Taylor says he has
been close observer and in his twentyone years
perlence he has crop failure in the val
ley, no drought, no floods, no storms to ruin the
crops. There is little change in the season from
year to the other that there will not be diff
ference of four per cent in yield of the fields pro-
vlded the man who tils the soil uses the pre-
caution each year and takes equal care of his crop
To quote Mr. Taylor literally he says, 1T is cinch
man can't lose. He figure to an almost GER
tainty on the result He is not obliged to take into
consideration the floods the drought the impover-
shed soil the farmer of the east and middle west has
to contend with.
He has just returned from trip over the valley
in order to size up the situation after the heavy rains
and predicts the heaviest crop the valley has ever
produced The first cutting of alfalfa will be little
short, but watch out for the next one, the crop will
be like Abraham Lncon's famous hay crop He said
that he stored all that he could on the land which
produced it and put the balance in the barn Grain,
potatoes and fruit will produce wonderfully. Mr..
Taylor says that it makes him glad that he is living
when he reads of the flooded condition along the
river bottoms in the middle west, the drowned out
corn and wheat crops Another thing he mentioned
that the farmer of the middle west and east has to
contend with is that after hard rains he has to wait
week before he get in the fields with his pillow
and by that time it rains again at least it does this
year. In this section the farmer go in his field
within twenty four hours of the hardest rain and Gull
tivate his crops.
In reviewing the conditions Mr.. Taylor says that
the man who comes here today has a better chance
to win out with land at from $500 $4,000 per acre
than had the man of ten and twelve years ago with
land at from $1,000 to $500 per for the reason
that the man of today has high cash market for
every pound which he can produce. The land does
not become impoverished by continual cultivation but
by the planting of alfalfa is brought back to more
than its virgin strength. Unlike the middle west
where the farmer is obliged to grow clover and turn
it under for fertilizer the farmer in the irrigated
valley grows his clover and alfalfa and harvests his
CROP the deep blowing of the roots of the plants fur
nshng the nutrition for the soil Of all the irri-
gated sections in the great northwest for he has
seen them all, Mr.. Taylor pronounces the land of
the Upper Snake as the best. Unlimited water sit
uated at the head of the great river, the farmer of
this section has the first claim the water and it
is never necessary for him to deny himself its use
Abundance of water makes this section the premier
ted Of tnn1