Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1914-01-30
GRIT AND GRUB

experienced in this kind of irrigation
The merchant. the doctor, the clerk
even the school marin, who didn't
know whether spuds grew on bushes
or which COW gave buttermilk wher
they came in. but who have followed
the advice Of practical men. are max
ing good while some of those fellows
with heads as hard as billiard balls
farmers for-sure who have hung VI
long records of failure in other parts
are continuing to do likewise here
and wear a crouch against their
Creator, the country and them
selves.
There is the big Swede who lives a
mile toward sunset from my diggings
He is a genial. jolly, whole-souled
chap who wears the smile that won't
come off. He spent years in the lum-
Der camps, on construction gangs and
in other equally soft snaps, until at last
he decided to tackle the sage brush.
one moonlight night three years ago
he weighed anchor for a small port
in North Washington. headed SOU
SOU east, half east, and dropped his
mud hook six miles north Of Richfeld
on eighty acres of sagebrush made
his filing and contract with the irriga-
ton company, bought team and wa
gon, put up a shack seven by six, and
started in.
1t would mako a pet coon laugh to
hear him tell his first years expert
ence hot-footins it across the fields to
the channels prepared for it-half
dozen tiny streams striking a turf
clod or sage root, then jumping hurd-
les until, gathering size and momen-
tum. they start across the field along
the line of least resistance,
without regard for corrugation or any
thing else. He has not been at the
game three years, has a good sub
stantial house a barn, granary, tool
house, blacksmith shop. and hog and
chicken houses. He has broken all
his land, and among other things has
a growing orchard of five hundred
trees. He is making a speciality of al
falfa and Poland China hogs. He
paid $50 an acre for his land, but s125
an acre would not buy it today.
e IL h
more the rule than the exception-yet
on the other hand there is the fellow
who comes from the East or Middle
West. Johnnie Wise-he knows all
about farming; can't any one tell him;
he is going to show us rubes. Well,
it's a hundred to-one shot that he hits
the trail for pastures new in less than
twelve months, damning the country
and every one in it.
Still, On the whole, we have on this
tract the most cosmopolitan and dem
ocratic bunch you ever met up with.
Adjoining me on the west is a young
couple A diminutive Boston school
marin, wearying of pink teas, punch
bowls, and social functions. grabbed
her hubby by his lily-white hands and
pink whiskers and liked for the Gold
en- West. Hearing of this wonderful
country they lit here bought a forty |
acre farm, made their first payment OF
three dollars an acre and put up a |
neat little shack Forthwith she said !
TO her hubby: you grab a grubbins |
hoe spit on your hands and dig; Til |
just grab off the district school f., /
nine months stunt" They are 10th in
the collar and pulling together al d /
they'll come out with flying oolors.
A Booster With Nothing to Sell
Here is a prominent physician from
one end Of Iowa and druggist from /
another Middle State region They
threw the scaIpel and pill boxes inio
the discard and are living the real life .
and singing the praises of Father
Abraham. There is smoke" the Ari-
iona cow puncher. He slid in here
three years ago on bronco, captured /
one Of the finest little women on the
tract, got a forty all broke and in
fine state of cultivation, and they are .
making better than Joe Patchen's time .
raising alfalfa hogs and spuds.
And SO it goes with people from
nearly every state in the Union and /
from Ill walks of life-carving out
homes and future independence from
one Of the most healthy and fertile
spots IN the Inland Empire Oh, yes,
I'm a little booster from the ground
up, but I've got nothing to sell.
On the Big Wood River, fifteen miles
north Of us, is the Great Maize Dam,
which backs up the water. forming
AXE twelve miles long by two miles
vide This supplies the water for the
Richfeld, Shoshone. Gooding and
Dietrich tracts-12O.O 600 acres of irri-