Arizona republican., 1910-01-09
A Kick Against the Knoeker.

A northern farmer. temporarily in
 Phoenix, writes us at considerable length against local knockers Among
 other things. he writes:
 T was amused at the local knocker
 this week This cold snap down here
 certainly gives him smile that
 means, in plain language, I told you SO He is delighted to talk to us 1 fellows from the north whenever op- portunity presents itself. and to tell
 us that what he said the first day ! he met us is absolutely true: that the country is no good In winter time it is too cold. and in summer time it is next to Dante's Inferno the, hottest place on earth Oranges and lemons? Talking about those fruits? Why, it is foolish to grow them. Those trees freeze every so often. and people just plant them to fool the land settlers, and not for any profit This morning. when some of the prospectors here remarked that 1t certainly was cold this week, the knocker looked at them and said: This cold weather for the Salt River valley2 I guess nit. No, this is just average winter weather here. Why, sir. when l came here twenty-two years ago, it was so cold that l actu- ally filled two large-siZed ice houses with 10-inch ice from the Salt river This knocker does not seem to know that in Nebraska. Iowa and the other states they had fifteen days of tenn perature below zero, and that it got cn steam on railroads. And the knocker does not tell that they had zero weather all over. Texas this week. and blOckades of snow.
 "l think that. taking it all around. this severe weather all over the Unit ed States has been very little felt in Phoenix, and no northern man should pay any attention to the foolish talk of the knocker But I am sorry to say that several northern people left Phoenix this week because they be-
 ieved that the knocker told them the truth" ..r.
 The knOcker has his habitat in all communities. and Phoenix perhaps has fewer of him, approximately. than other places With hammer at work. he is seen in all places where there IS a strong element of progress sive people. Progress is distasteful to the knocker. Belonging to the flotsam and jetsam of human failures. he is unable to approve success in others. Stagnation is his joy The greater the general prosperity, the greater be- comes his personal grouch against all mankind. The proportion of chronic failures being small in the Salt River valley, we are more happily situated than some other sections. But the knocker. like the coyote. tries to make up in noise what he lacks in numbers And being industrious in nothing but knocking, a few chronic knockers can do more or less damage even here. where conditions on every hand con- tradict his statements. for it is not every tourist that has our corre- spondent's faculty of quickly assimi- lating facts
 But we can afford to be philo- sophical, for it is our fortune to live in the best section of the United States. We have the best winter climate, and the most healthfuI sum- mer climate. on the globe. The aver age of prosperity is higher among our people than anywhere else. We have the best soil. and our soil and climate are the best adapted to all the products of the temperate and the semi-tropic zones. There is no other place in the world where the farmer. the miscellaneous fruit grower or the orange grower can so surely depend