Omaha daily bee., 1909-06-13

kE&tk3GSI wayne county as II IS known
S&S today, is a wonderful pilgrimage
fraught with untold hardships and heroic
struggles.
The early trials and failures of the plo-
neer OF Wayne county were largely matters
Of plain chance. The workers were en-
countering forces they did not know and
could not measure. 1t was a fight in the
dark. Today they know what they are
doing and to what end they are doing.
Their labor is intelligent and therefore
vastly more effective than before.
Within the last fifteen or twenty years
prairie farming in Wayne county has
ceased to be an experiment. 1t has gained
the dignity Of a profession in which the
greatest reward, both industrial and social,
20 to the men best equipped and disci-
plined for their work.
This new farmer Of Wayne county has
not satisfied himself merely with attention
to agriculture. 1t is he who has worked
out the solutions Of many of those prob
lens which once sorely puzzled the farmer.
He is a practical economist, and his work
in this field has given to the products Of
the farms a clear and distinct meaning
and value in the world of mme The
prairie farmer is now established in firm
world relations. In the past hapless years
he was all but isolated-the parties were
only a sort Of commercial back water in
which no traffic currents were known.
Means of transportation were few and
poor; markets were too far away; and so,
no matter what the volume of a crop, there
was little or no profit in it for the grower
Railroads n Factor I'm Fight.
A satisfactory adjustment of this condi-
ton did not depend entirely upon railroad
h.IllIA@ TAA raI-AAa 49, 1N.o
where, had to be won over to the service
of the people, upon terms that would leave
something in profits for the shippers. 1t
would be foolish to say that this struggle
is over for the Wayne county farmer, but
the cause Of the farmer is making steady
gains. 1t Is not too much to say that the
railroads and the people are coming to a
pretty fair understanding Of their common
dependence.
Aside from railway extension. there has
come another change in conditions. The
markets for farm products are moving
closer and ever closer to the heart OF the
farming country. The growth of the great
packing industry in the Missouri valley
illustrates this. 1t is no longer necessary
for the prairie breeder to ship his stock to
Chicago or remoter points, The markets at
Omaha, Kansas City and elsewhere in the
west are quite as good, and the establish
ment of stock yards at these points with
the unfailing demand for choice stock,
makes markets for grain and forage crops.
The towns and cities of Wayne and ad-
joining counties are becoming more than
mere trading places for raw farm prod
uctsi they are doing their share to give 10
these products their final value in the
markets. Manufacturing is already far
past the experimental stage in the west.
In Northwestern Nebraska.
The p~rairies of northeastern Nebraska Of
fer to the state a treasury OF exhaustless
life-a life Of firm first relations with the
soil, OF fixed industrial principles. of limit.
less capacity for expansion and service
What politics, or statecraft, or finance
cannot do in the way OF perpetual restora.
ton Of life's wear and tear, that the mir.
acle OF the soil can do. There lies the
unmeasured, the unguessed power Of tn,
western prairie country.
The returns of yields Of cereals
vegetables and fruit from farms in wayn,
county almost challenge belief. Tn,
farmer is able, year after year, to max,
his land produce bOunteous and profitabl,
crops and to eliminate in a great measur,
the possibilities Of failure, Painstaking, in
telligent mastery OF progressive methods
coupled with consistently applied labor
insure a measure of success that is no
exceeded in any county in the state.
Wayne county is one OF the choices
bodies of farming land In the state o
Nebraska. If there is a poor quarter sec
ton, we are at a loss to locate the same
The county has 256,7OO acres in farms
with 16S,9OO acres under a high state o
cultivation. During the continuance Il