Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1910-05-13
BURLEY WORKING
FOR SOUTH IDAHO
0. S. L. Passenger Agent is Edu-
eating Fasteners to the Pos
sibilities of the Arid West

dreamers. They are pronounced I'M
practical and with that their ideas are
dismissed with smile, more of tolera-
ton than aught else.
But there is great dreamer who has
perhaps, never received the credit due
him. And the peculiar thing about it
is now that his early di cams are COM
ing true, instead of waking up" he
continues to dream other dreams.
This man some 20 years ago saw for
the time an irrigated tract of land. He
didn't know thing about irrigation,
but ne saw things that others failed to
see-he dreamed. He saw thousands
of families cultivating the soil of Idaho
made fertile by the transmission of
water where but single families
were then found. He appreciated what
it meant to haYe water to seep into the
soil reaching the seeds and roots of
grains and trees, just at the very time
that water would do the most good, for
he had lived in Nebraska where water
was often lacking just at the moment
when its presence would double or
treble the crop that was produced when
it did come.
When David E. Burley accepted the
position of general passenger agent for
the Oregon Short Line railway. he was
not satisfied to see his trains loaded
with people ticketed to Oregon or
Washington points or from those points
through to some eastern point; he
wanted to see the time arrive when
his trains would be carrying passengers
back and forth in Idaho and carrying
tickets from outside points to points
within that state which carried so many
miles of the Short Line system. That
ambition helped him magnify his
dreams perhaps, but the first work he
did was to set about inducing people to
come to Idaho.
He had desperate time of it, and
frankly acknowledges that it cost him
more to get one man located in Idaho
then than it does to get thousand of
them today. He first adopted the theory
that the man who knew by personal ex-
perience what irrigation would do, was
the proper man to send among the
farmers of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and
surrounding states. Accordingly he
furnished free transportation to all who
would take the trip from Idaho to go
back and preach the doctrine OF irri-
gated lands. Those approached, how
ever, looked with suspicion upon the
accounts of the productiveness of irri-
cation, and refused to believe what
they were told.
Then what amounted to a detective
agency was adopted. Whenever it
could be learned that anywhere in the
central western states man had sold
his farm and was thinking of going
elsewhere, agents were sent to him to
present the claims of this wonderful
Idaho land. Still the results were un-
satisfactory even though personal soil
citation was resorted to.
But Burley dreamed on. These west
ern men who had tried irrigation and
knew what it would do, were not be-
heved. Some other plan had to be
devised. Every land agent of every
railway running west of Chicago and
every real estate agent in all the towns
of that country was made agents of the
passenger department of the Short /
Line and they were paid commission
upon every sale of Idaho land made
through them. They exerted every
energy to induce people to visit these
wonderful lands. Passes We're given 1
the agents so that they might come and
see for themselves and might know +
that they were not being asked to
They came and, of /
course, were more than satisfied. The
stream of irrigation was started.
Then the new and more extensive
irrigation plans were made and carried
into execution.
The dreamer began to see the real-f
ilzation of his DRAINS.
He is dreaming again now. He sees
Idaho producing potatoes to feed the
world This dreamer who has the hab-
it Of making his dreams come true,
thinks nothing but potatoes, he can
talk nothing but potatoes dreams
potatoes.
Satisfied that no other country is so
well adapted to potato culture, this
dreamer sat in his offices in Salt Lake
City and planned campaign which in
he end will tax the full capacity of the
-ailway which ne in part represents to
make provision for.
He got INTO correspondence with the |