Rocky Ford enterprise., 1913-02-14
ROCKY FORD. COLORADO FRIDAY, FEBRUARY a. 1918.

pitiful than to see good man put
his all into some proposition where
he will inevitably lose it, but of ma
ture that he is able to struggle with
for 10 or 20 years. In this case he
not only loses the property he has
but also the time given by nature to
try again.
If the price asked you for land at
home does seem high is it not worth
a great deal to know just what you
are getting for your money? l call
to be practically all first class land in
that neighborhood. We are proud of
the fact that very few strangers have
had an opportunity to buy land there.
If a man in Newdale wanted to sell
out, either some neighbor stood ready
to give him his price or Mr.. Morri-
son had some neighbor in Illinois that
wanted next to good thing. All
these cases have made good invest
ments and are satisfied. During the
time / have lived there l remember
four strangers who came in by the
real estate agent route. One has
dale is n. G. and the other will be
just as soon as he can without hurt
ing the sale of his property. The
trouble was not in the land SO much
as their wrong idea of what it was.
Natives who bought adjoining land
are making good and are satisfied.
Rocky Ford has been slandered
by her best friends for years on ac-
count of a mistaken idea OF loca1d
pride. When the United States be- |
gan to recover from the financial de-
preston of the nineties, the recovery
was the most rapid in the more fertile |
and populous sections. In addition
to this Rocky Ford values were help
cd by the building of the sugar fac
tory SO that the people of Rocky |
Ford got into the habit of Dragging
of fabulously high priced land. While |
the Arkansas Valley was full of $40
per acre land it was sure rubbing it in
on our neighbors at Las Animas and |
Fowler to tell. stories of land selling |
for $50 per acre. 1t was rubbed into |
them with such good effect that they |
have never forgotten it. They are
still telling everyone they meet that |
their land is just as good as that at
Rocky Ford and from one to two
hundred dollars per acre cheaper. II
is their best selling point and works |
us an injustice.
The people who sold out the X. Y. |
ranch at Granada. when they run cx-
cursions to their land out of Chicago
made a practice of coming straight |
on through without stop to La Junta. |
They would then, in order to show |
what their lands could be developed |
into, drive up to Rocky Ford, have |
dinner and drive round through our
small tracts. OF course in passing |
any place which had ever sold for a |
good price mention the amount with |
the result that the customer got the |
idea that land was worth lot of
more here. l remember a carriage
load of these people stopping me at
my gate, introducing themselves and
ceiving a reply that / liked it, the |
agent in charge, always n the look
out for business, told me they had
just as good a country as this but un-
developed. He said If | wanted to i'll
vestigate his proposition they had a
car at La Junta and would be glad
to have me 60 down with them.
When in answer to my question as
to prices, he said he could sell me
first class raw prairie land without
for I25 per acre / told
him / expected to buy the land he
had admired so much adjoining where
we, were standing with a house on it,
set in alfalfa and fenced for SIS per
too. nearly tainted. Some one had
The Garden of Eden on the lower
end of the Otero Canal was sold in
the same manner. l stood on that
SIS acre land and overheard the man
in charge of three auto loads of home
seekers say that land was probably
worth 5000 per acre. Probably it is
but it is not selling now for what il
is worth.
During the past summer I have had
occasion to meet a great many farm
ers at their homes at Las Animas.
Fowler. Nineland. Ft. Lupton as well
as other places and unless they are
making the same mistake many of our
people make, enlarge the price as
much as possible. land is priced prac-
tically as high there acre for acre as
for high development. While they
do not have the 10 acre tracts, what
they do have is priced high enough
to make any one prefer our values.
The fact is that our neighbors have
often their prices as high as we have
but are not growing about it. On
the other hand if man buys 20 acres
of land with $4,000 per acre when in
fact he only paid half that much.
City lots and improved suburban
propcrty cost money in any country.
Whether we get more for our land
than others do or not. the thing
most easily proven of all is. that it is
worth more and worth more than is
being asked for it. The combina-
ton of the best soil, water and mar
keting facilities together with our
well advertised reputation in all the
markets make our products worth
more than places not so fortunate.
Take a car OF anything we have to
sell into the markets for sale and the
mere statement that the contents |