Rocky Ford enterprise., 1912-02-02
WelI-knOwn Writer In Har-
per's Weekly Pays Tribute to
the Energy and Optimism of a
State that is Bound to go Ahead

yur see that waitress over there eye
ing the gayly emblazoned headline of
! The home paper that has been for
| Narded to you: She is an expatriate,
aud ii the rules OF this little restaur
ant were not too severe she might
| tell you that she had once lived in
| Jefferson county, New York, When
| she received the alternative OF death
or exile she laughed at tuberculosis
| and came here.
| She was competent stcnographer
| -lhcrc was a nicely engraved diplo-
Ma from tine busiIYss college at
Rochester to prove mat, and Denver
must have work for many such as
| She. But that was the trouble.
| lherc were too many such as she,
and the girl who had lived in Il nice
| house III the best street OF a northern
| New y ork town was glad to make Il
nard living in Il cheap restaurant OF
| Denver. The army OF the eNpatriates
IS an impressive thing.
| But Colorado, simply because she
possesses climate SO even and SO
health-giving as 10 attract many thou
| sands OF inaylids, aims to be some
| thing far more solid and sturdy than
| a mere sanitarium We have already
| spoken OF the hard fight that Denver
is waging for her Chamber OF Com
merce to win lowered freight rates
| through to the Gulf ports, while with
| IN a very few months a orespondcnt
OF Harper's Weekly has called atten-
| tiOn TO the plans oil that same cham
| Der OF commerce for raising a grub
stake fund to induce prospectors to
axe to the Colorado hills again.
That is an idea OF infinite possibili-
| lies, as is its corollary to reduce the
ost OF gold and silver produc ton
through more scientific production
q the problem OF bringing her min
cfal production up to its old high
standards great state, flushed with
lhc vigor of youth and strength, Is
lending her resources.
and yet you will Ind keen-witted
CuiDr.doans who will tell you that
as fulcre of the state they love lies
not i'll 9he uncertain treasures of her
Hount;iii sides nor iii attempts to
Jribe manufacturers to locate their
plants III her cities, but i'll the work
able irrtiliiy of her soil; in the agri-
cultural possibilities of the hundreds
IT Thousands OF level acres OF the
plains. Having told you this much,
,hey ofttimcs fairly divide themselves
INTO two fac ction,-thc one preaching
of airming by engineering, the mar
vels that follow in the wake OF irri-
CATION, the other whispering tempt
ngly OF the low production costs ana
nigh net profits OF that which has
come to be known as dry farming.
The dry farmers have had their in
lings most recently. Three great
white circus tents stood in the center
II one OF the main streets oil Colora-
do Springs in October, and to them
came the expert dry farmers from ala
corners of the continent.
There were men who had trekked
north from the burning sands of the
Mexican deserts, shrewd Canardians
loan from the Saskatchewan with d
cushcl OF land schemes in their bon
nets. wizard who has been doing
Things" over in central Oregon, and,
;ot the least interesting of the varieu
assemblage, a little group OF agricul-
ural "sharps" from eastern Colorado.
You remember eastern Colorado "a
you trckkcd from the Missouri river
toward the setting sun. 1t was like
he claims of Nebraska and still sur
pas,inp,y different, for where the Ne
Oraska plains were rich farms and
prospcrous ranches, eastern Colora
10 WAS uniiounly waste OF sage
lrush rcoplcd with prairie dogs and
jackrabbi;---sLvc close TO Denver,
where the long .renche. OF the irriga-
ton canals have begun to work
change in the landscape.
Bat to irr;rate high-level country
like Cheyenne, for instance, at the
extreme eastern. edge OF Colorado,
and a hundred or more miles distant
from the water-producing hollows ol
the mountains-is problem all but
impossible. and still the increasingly
better use of all America makes it
necessary that Cheyenne county be
used directly or indirectly in the pro-
duction OF foodstuffs.
1t has seemed foolish and worse
than that to proclaim the impossible
ity of the thing: for years before the
white man came TO Colorado millions
of buffalo were feeding on those arid
ranges of what is today Cheyenne
county in the Silver state.
So il was that a party OF shrewd
Dakota farmers came little time ago
to Cheyenne county, brought with
them enough traction engines and
high-grade machinery to build rail
road, and began tilling the soil that
had rested idle so many years. hir-
ty-horse power gas traction engines
pulling gang-plows that cut a strip
OF prairie thirty-six feet in width at
each trip showed land that was not
merely virgin but fertile.
One hundred acres OF plowing was
only an average days work for these
farmers, and well it is, for dry farm
ing means constant cultivation-thc
method by which the precious moist
ure is conserved within the soil, Such
dry farming under simplest conditions
begets Spanish peas and milo maize
good animal feed. and so indirectly
aids in the solution OF the constant
ly comrlicaling food problem OF the