Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1911-05-25
IRRIGATION MAKES
NOYICES FARMERS
GrOcers, Bankers, Professors Often
More Successful Than Expert
Soil TilIerS.

Soil TiIIers.
Frederick Palmer, in an article
headed ''The Service that Makes The
Desert Bloom" in the June Hamp.
tons Magazine, throws many sidt
lights Oh the subject of irrigation
farming in the South and West. He
says:
Every would-be settler must beal
in mind that there cam be no irriga-
Ition farming worthy of the name
without elbow grease. Thonougt
working of the soil is even more es-
sential than on humid land. It holds
the moisture in the earth; it makes
every drop of the elixir from the
canals serve man to its utmlost.
Many Of the sooner class, who
had always .sooner be somewhere
else than where they are, have made
good speculations by selling their en-
tries. Others who remained thought
that the water would DID everything.
Inasmuch as irrigation can grow
weeds as beautifully as it grows
melons or berries, they could not
succeed if they had ten acre feet a
year. After their failure they wan-
dered lazily forth on another rain
bow chase.
THE United States Reclamation
Service can only say good radiance
in such cases. It wants men who
will be as true to their duty in MAX
ing the most of their ranches as the
engineers have been to theirs in the
construction of dbms and bitches.
The man bred a farmer, used TO
spreading his activities out thin over
a quarter section, Ito blowing and
sowing and letting the rains do the
rest. and amused to concentration,
will not always be weaned from his
old-fashioned ways. He SCOTS at the
idea of not killing UP potatoes, which
On irrigated land means a less of
m oisture; he SCOTS a. every other
idea which is not according to his
previous practice.
''Often the sooner thinking that
he has put a good one over en- a
ter'ler,oot, sells to a, imam of the
type tina. is willing to follow in
struction and work hard. His sue
cessor, who has everything to learn,
may get his purchase price back in
a years produce. He does what the
book says; he follows the advice of
the experienced irrigation farmer.
He realizes that every square yard
OF his soil is a delicate piece CT
machinery requiring care. He gets
three and four times the crop values
an r cut of what the average
humid acre will produce.
ut is not, then the amount of
YOUR acreage, but what you make of
it that counts. Efar1ner with twenty
acres frequently does better than one
with forty, and one with TEN better
than one with twenty. With such
small farms. houses ARE naturally
close together. This does away with
isolation. 1t is only al few steps tn
your neighbours house.
I'm a number of the projects the
service has itself selected and laid
out the sites for the towns. There
is a civic Gender, with a park and a
schoolhause, land ALL main streets
opening ON it. Facing this will be
the churches and the library. One
street is cut up into small lots for
stores; while on the others are uni
formly large plots for dwellings.
"In lone of these towns an engineer
told me that he met in a half hour, q
former bankcashier from a small
Ohio City; a former grocer from
illinois, dEur college graduates; a
former college professor and a for
mer locomotive engineer-all .dotng
we'll as practical farmers. In such
communities you find men who r4e.ad
good books; VIII, read their news
papers for something besides SENT
sations, their magazines with shrewd
appreciation, and who think ON what
they read"