The Richfield recorder. (Richfield, Idaho) 1909-1931, 1913-08-28
WANTED: MORE pEoPLE ROE IDAHO.

Idaho gained 100 per cent in population between. 1900
and 1910; only two other states gained as much.
But it does not follow that because business conditions are
slow-because through ignorance or lack of farm capital, or
through lack of marketing experience or foresight our yields
and our prices have been too low for ~proit---the state is be-
ing populated too rapidly, faster than could or should be as
simulated. We have not too many people nor too much pro-
duce: we should at this minute have double the population,
and three or four times the production. The people have
not come here too rapidly, nor produced too much stuff. SO
as to warrant the belief, or even the suspicion, that the state
is congested with either people or products.
What is wrong. is this---or these:
The Carey Act administration has not realized how hard.
how expensive it is to open a Carey Act farm, and so has not
done all that could or should have been done to give longer.
time for payment And a parallel oversight has been the lack
of supervision Of company exploitation. Most Of the adver-
Using was in the larger centers of population, where clerks,
teachers. mechanics and Others of slender means, unfamiliar
with farm life, were led by glttering advertising to believe
that the state guaranteed and took a far more active part in
helping settlers to prosperity than is actually the case. I'm
skilled in either raising or selling farm products, unable to
avoid the expensive pitfalls Of bad farming methods, without
the capital to pull them through without a painfully hungry
spell during the experience perod--the inevitable has hap
penedl But not because OF too many people, or too much
produce!
Indeed, even another like influx of the same general class
of non-farmers would today be vastly beneficial. Enough
practical knowledge of irrigation has been gained, that no
newcomer not a fool need experience the painful wastes ofthe
pioneers. Contract conditions are better. More people to
insure a far bigger and more regular production, would help
rather than demoralze the markets. Idaho production, too
small to be a settled factor in The outside market, too big to
be ignored, is at the awkward stage of the youth too light to
do a mans work. too big and selfconscious to play longer
with the kids. If we could grow up" in population and
in production in a single night. the financing of individuals
and communities, and ,he profitable marketing ofcrops. would
be be ttered by the same magic, but in a far greater degree.
The writer rather boastingly believes that his newspaper
insistance on either the removal OF the agricultural college to
southern Idaho, or the establishing Of a comprehensive sys-
tenn Of farm instruction in the new irrigated section, has had
a marked effect in lettering farm conditions. But the state
has only fairly begun to do its full dutyi 1t is not a surplus
of either people or products, but a dearth of both, and of in
formation, that now troubles Idaho.
Recurring to the proposition Of issuing $25, 600, 900 state A
improvement bonds, for roads, railroads, waterways, power II
HpvaIOrrnpDt. farm loans" atQ .M f tha ctata pODlH III HI or l.
as to properly impress the millions who go through Idaho to
or from the San Francisco fair in 1915, and could increase the n
population even one or two hundred thousand by a vigorous o
campaign, there is more prosperity for all, better market
for their products, than for the sparse population already o.
though the average capital and irrigation or farm m
experience be the same as they were in the first Carey Act h
But by no possible campaign could another big q
immigration be induced with as small a per capita capital or Oh
little knowledge of farming--and they have markets and pc
marketing organizations, the experience of pioneer %neighbors, k
heir own better farm knowledge, and a rapidly growing sys- IN
EN- of state travelling school instruction. Idaho with a linn 81
ted population and production is today like the man trying m
live on an exclusive milk diet: he takes a little dose, it is fne