The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-08-15

p;o,arrs Who Are Making GOOd-A
fortune in Dill Pic.1les-F'ruit
lands Worth Thousand Dollars
An Acre-Big Crops of Alfalfa and
Nloney i'm Ostriches and Dates
How Il Washington StenOgraphcr
Made Sf0,GOO-FarnS and How to
Get Them-A Look at the Gases
communities Their New Cities
and Towns-Sonicthing About the
Banks. Churches and Schools
live Information About the Lands
of the Reclamation Service Now
Being Opened.
Copyright, 1911. by Frank G. Carpenter
WASHINGTON. D.. G.
Three years ago he was stenogra-
nhcr in the Postoffice Department at
Washington. He was getting $1,000
a wear and he had one months an
nuaI vacation He had saved $500
by skimping, and could see but little
light for the future. Then he went
west on his annual leave and was
present at the opening Of some gov
eminent irrigated lands at Huntley,
in northern Montana. He dropped
into the line of homeseekers and
drew an allotment Of f0rty-six acres.
with the right to pay for it in ten
year nstalments.
He resigned his Washington job,
and using his savings, built himself q
home He then cleared thirty-1ve
acres of sagebrush and soWed it to
oats and wheat. He set out an apple
orchard and between the rows put in
1000 strawberry plants and some
curTants, grapes and blackberries.
His oats produced sixty-tWo bushels
per acre and the wheat thirty bush
els. The apple trees grew. The next
year he planted sugar beets on thirty
one acres of this land and the crop
therefrom brought in S3.100. The or
chard is rapidly growing and the man
already estimates himself worth at
least $4,000
That is the story Of one mans ex
perience on the irrigated tracts of
the reclamation service which Uncle
Sam is now parceling out to his chill
dren. He has already sold thousands
OF acres on such instruments and he
mas water enough in the big reser-
Voss lately built to feed 25,O0O farms
OF forty acres each. This land has all
been reclaimed from the desert. and
II is only the beginning. 1t is the
hrst fruits Of the reclamation service,
which has already spent 0,000, 900
In DAMS reservoirs and canals. A
million acres are now under water,
and within the next generation or so
more than a million homes will have
peen added to those Of our country.
Some Of Uncle Sans Settlers.
Before [ tell you how such farms
may De gotten | want to give some
stories about and letters from Uncle
Sans pioneers. The reclamation bu-
reau at Washington has large COR
respondenCe from those who have
taken such tracts. It publishes the
value of the lands and tells what may
De made from them. Take the fruit
oases of the Pacific northwest. IL
the Information did not come from
the government l should not venture
TO quote it, for the prices seem to be
out OF all reason. Irrigated fruit
lands owned by individuals right near
some OF .ae government tracts sell
1or from 500 to $4,000 per acre, and
some of the sagebrush nearby is
nIlnglng $50 per acre and upward
rms is in the Yakima valley and
others Of that region where dams
can be made at the outlets Of noun
tam lakes, which will eventually give
$4,000 acre feet. There is enough
acres and there are four or five
Schemes planned for the Yakima val
iey alone. There are excellent or
thard lands on nearly all Of the pro
9ects' and the men who have talk er
up holdings are rapidly growing ,ir
Wealth.
Engineer Blanchard Of the reclama
.ioh service tells me of man named
oliFer who planted ten acres of or
chard near Yakima about six years
ago He nettted S2,700 last year from
MS 1rult and the vegetables which hi
idiseS between the rows. In the
same region J.. 0. Shadbolt. a DIR.
sooas merchant from Montana, made
slo,oo0 from the fruit raised on forty
oile acres. In 1907 the same orehar6
Yielded gross Of $4,000 and a ne
y, $4,000. and in the three year:
which the man has been fruit raising
az ne has netted $4,000, or more thar
$4,000 year
Inc Governments renOrta that full.