The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-25

newspapers when one sees reports of this, that and the other mine having produced anywhere from half a mil lion to five million dollars in gold or silver during their fiscal year.
 T have visited a number of gold mines in Colorado, spent two days on two different levels in the Gem mine, which is located on the newhouse tunnel, the largest tunnel in the world, by the way, as it is four miles long, and is still being extended.
 The Gem is one of a group of large-d e-dlVidend-paying mines ramify- ing from the Newhouse tunnel, which is situated in Idaho Springs, Clear Creek County Colorado, just about 100 Smilesout of Denver. Next to Cripple Creek, this district yields the greatest amount of gold per year, and some of the most famous mines in the. world, such as the Stanley mines, are located here. The landscape in this vicinity looks like a Siren con- structed on gigantic scale, present ing everywhere numerous prospectors holes, caves and shafts sunk to vari- ous depths, which are indicative of mans lndefatigab1e search for gold.
 There is not a height or noun tain-crest to which this industrious digging has not been carried, every foot of ground about here is staked and claimed and patented, and there is not not a square-rod of ground but has it's teSt-hOle.
 Viewed from the great height of other mountains surrounding these, the view in the distance presents the appearance of a plot of ground with numerous rabbit-holes and burrow- ing, or perhaps even more than of ant-hiIls, where the busy ant has left evidences of it's untiring zeal.
 Mining is one of the most fas- cinating occupations of man, and it seemed to me more of a passion than an occupation.
 'As President Taft once said in a public address, There is not an Amer become the Chief of the Army some day. So there is not miner living, however humble his station, but that tondly dreams of becoming a mine-owner, and that in the not far distant future, else gold mining would not be what it is pro- claimed to be.
 '"The Work-day in the gold mines is eight hours, but from personal ex- perience and observation I should conclude that it is about six hours too long, while the daily wage. where people work for wages instead of on a lease, is from three to four dollars a day.
 "Shorn of it's romanticism, gold mining is a very prosaic and matter of-fact occupation, of no higher plane than street-labor, and far less healthy than that, especially where the mine happens to be damp and cold and mouldy, in which condition I found many
 What other phases are there in Western life?" the doctor was asked
 Well, in the beginning, when this section of the west was just settled, mining was pursued to the exclusion R17S hi or cattle breeding was not even thought of.
 'In those days eggs sold for S15O a dozen, a sack of flour cost $25.00, peck of potatoes $10.00, while board and room, even of a moderate kind could not be had for less than $25.00 per week.
 But all this has changed Places that were only watering tanks along certain railroads 9 few years ago have become large cities, and some min irg-camps fifty years back have changed into great metropolises, like the city of Denver, for instance.
 Agriculture has come now to the foreground and is the absorbing topic of the West. Land is constantly ris- ing in value, and speculations in land are at a fever height. They have not the manufacturing conditions of the east, but what a good acre of ground under irrigation yields there in a year it cannot yield here in three, or per haps I had better say three acres in the east could not yield.
 ''The government is doing wonders for the west nowadays by way of opening new irrigation tunnels, on which it spends millions of dollars; it's reclamation service will prove of immense value to the entire country while the free public lands that it is still giving away in that section, in parcels from 60 to 360 acres, being but gift to homesteaders, will in the course of a few years be worth many thousands of dollars
 Dry farming is another thing that greatly interests the people out therl and that promises much for the fu- | ture This is process by which it seems many things can be grown and l cultivated without either rain or arti- | ficia1 irrigation, and its advocates claim to accomplish wonders by if