The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1917-07-20
HARSH MEASURES FOR
GREAT LESSONS

Suggestion is made that terrible
lesson may come to the dry farmers
one of these times that will teach
them a lesson they will not soon for
get, and which will teach them the
possibilities of their soil and climate.
If it comes it will be a blessing to
the industry but it will be mighty
hard on individuals, and it does seem
that individuals count for but little
in the plans of the Infinite.
Out in the Snake river desert are
farmers who pillow in the fall, keep
the ground clear of weeds and moist
all the next summer. drill in their
wheat in early autumn and reap a
good crop the next year. There are
others who cheat themselves in vari-
Gus ways and give their lands less
chance to produce crop. The de-
gree of their cheating comes all the
way down the scale to late spring
blowing and spring sowing in half
dry seed bed. There are some who
approach dry farming so lightly that
they file on the land, live on it or
have their folks live on it just long
enough to comply with the law, pillow
up just enough to entitle them to
get title, and then move away and
leave it to grow weeds that blow all
over the surrounding country,
swapping the good crops of their
neighbors with weeds by the null
tiplied millions the year after.
All of these different grades of
dry farmers and near-dry farmers
excepting the first-named, are cheat
ing themselves or their neighbors in
some degree and discrediting the
business. The man who plows mere
ly to get title so he can offer his
place for sale, is the worst cheat of
all, and should have to farm his
place or forfeit it to his neighbors
in proportion to the damage he has
done them with his crop of travelling
weed seed.
The settlers cannot settle these
wrongs among themselves, and the
laws of the land cannot settle them.
But such things usually get settled
on some plan that not everybody
can read while it is being done, and
this is what may yet happen to dry
farmers to get them into the classes
Gnu IhC anu CANh |
to which they belong.
Suppose there should come year
of extreme drouth when none would
harvest anything excepting those
that farmed according to the first
plan mentioned in this article. It
would be a lesson to everybody, but
it would not be sufficient. The next
year there would be shallow plow-
ing and spring sowing in the hope
of having rainy season. But sup
pose it should prove more severe
drouth than the first year, and even
the garden dried up and the desert
grass parched in its infancy, and
the weeds and thistles could not ma
ture and the gophers died.
A lot of the rain-hope, spring-sow
take-a- chane dry farmers would pull
out and quit the game. Then sup
pose the next year should be so dry
it would only sprout weeds, but not
mature them, and would grow no
grain excepting on land that had
lain fallow two winters. BY that
time only the best of the dry farmers
would survive, and the speculative
element and the weeds and Russian
,histles and the gophers would be
tut of it. 1t may be urged that the
mustard and thistles would not kill
% easily, but stranger things than
hat have happened for they have
in some localities withs
ut the great drouth. II
Such a calamity would probably
ettIe the whole theory that 1t was
O use to farm in any way but the
est. and those who by their loose
,ethods were doomed to go along
-ithout ever being really successful t
,ould be driven into other fields OF
ndeavor where they might soon
chieve real success. In consequence
their leaving or selling out, 1t
ould be possible for others to take
) real dry farming in their stead,
ID thus have the whole dry farm
lterprise going into the hands OF
,ople competent to succeed In 1t.
Stranger things than that nave :
opened, the great semi-arid belts b
Kansas and Nebraska that have +