The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1913-05-29
Oklahoma Letter.
Beaver, Okla, 5-19-1 {

Leon Reporter
AS many of my old neighbors
| around Van Vert requested me to
write to them l will take this means
hoping one letter will do for all as
my time for letter writing is limit
ed. We are still in 1.-The Sunny
South. If ever a country came up
to it's name, this country does. It
is called THE Sunny South and it
does not belle its name, for 1 belive
l can say truly that the sun shines
here $50 days in the year.
And what sunshine! What skies!
Talk of Italian skies, from all de-
scriptions l have seen of Italian
skies, we have them here.
But beautiful skies is not ALL We
have beautiful lands as we'll. And
Some people have the idea that we
can't raise anything down here, but
I say let them come and see or
read the papers and they can find
out what the south and west is do
ing. I said the land will raise every
thing and it will. Nothing has ever
been planted here that hasn't grown
but of course some crops do better
than others.
Wheat, broom corn, milo maize,
corn and kaffir corn are the leaders.
Corn is not grown very extensively
because milo maize is as good for
all feeding purposes and does much
better than corn. Milo maize is the
corn of the west.
For the benefit of these people
laboring under the mistaken idea
that we can't raise anything down
here will say that if they come down
in the fall of the year at the time
when the crops are being marketed
they will see such sights as they new
er saw before.
Liberal, Kansas, and Forgan, Ok
lahoma are the railroad markets for
the people of the northern part of
this county. Any hour, of the day in
the busy market season an observer
who is on one of the main roads
can count as high as from Is to 20
wagons forming a continuous string.
Wagons coming and going from
break of day until darkness shuts
them from view.
The railroads cannot haul the
grain away as fast as it comes in
and when all the ware houses are
filled the grain is poured in huge
piles on the ground near the rail-
road tracks until cars can remove it.
And it is the same way with the
broom corn. After all the ware
houses are filed with the broom
corn it is rolled out on the ground by
the warehouses and there it lays
hundreds upon hundreds of bales,
mute witnesses as to the power of
production of this little territory. ~
Such scenes may be seen at Liber-
al or Forgan in the fall or winter. I
never saw grain piled on the ground
near the railroad tracks in Iowa
waiting to be shipped, because the
trains carried it away faster than it
came in.
Some will say, ''No we feed our
grain to our hogs and cattle and ship
them. Right there is where the
Oklahoma farmer keeps ahead of the
Iowa farmer. While hogs can be
raised as easily and profitably here
as in Iowa, the Oklahoma farmer
says it doesn't pay to labor six
months in raising and harvesting a
crop and then labor the next six
months feeding it out to hogs and
cattle and then allowing for the
fluctuations of the market on stock
and run the risk of selling the fed
stock for just what they could have
gotten, out of the grain before it
was fed. They don't run the risk to
waken up to the fact that their
winters work of feeding has brought
them nothing. Grain marketed is
sure money and then after the grain
is out of the way he can 60 to work
getting the ground ready for the next
years crop as there is much of the
spring blowing done here in tho
winter months. H, AZ ss
Some will wonder If we don't raise
hogs and cattle here. Yes, every
farmer has them, but hogs are not
kept on = very large scale only ~ !
lev although every one raises their
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