Iron County register., 1919-09-18
From Thos. B. Polk.

write . few lines to-day as this is
Sunday and have time.
My wife returned home from the
hospital in eleven days after her
operation and is getting along fine.
I think we had one Of the best sur
geons that could be secured, DIR.
Haskall; he reminds me great deal
of our our old time friend, DR.. Mar
shall, OF Ironton. He is ready and
willing to answer any question or do
anything that he can for his patients.
Well, l will now try to tell you some
thing of the country. / am in one of
the best farming sections of Colorado
and said to be one of the heaviest
feeding sections of the world, which
is north of Denver, extending about
100 miles to Greely and about 90 or go
miles wide. Almost every farmer
feeds sheep or cattle. They get the
stock about the last of October and
feed until March or April. They feed
from 400 head of sheep to 10000 head,
and from one car of cattle to 1000 or
1900 head. They run them on the
fall pastures and the beet tops after
the beets are harvested. Then they
feed them on alfalfa, corn, barley,
chops, oats and dried pulp. Pulp is
what is left from the sugar beets after
the sugar is taken out. Some of it is
dried and then fed, while some is run
into silo and hauled out by the wa
gon loads. The Great Western Sugar
Company sold it last year to the farm
ers at 81. 90 a ton. The Company had
silo that held something like mill
lion tons. They started to hauling
about the first of December and haul
ed until May. Each man was allotted
two and onehslf tons to every acre
of beets he had in. Some days there
would be as high as so loads day
hauled ont ranging from two to six
tons to the load.
have seen the cattle when drove
into the feed lot, "corral" it is call
ed here, would stand on their hind
feet with their front feet In the wagon
to eat the pulp. I like the feeding
fine. All they do in winter here is
haul hay and feed cattle and sheep.
There was one town, Fort Collins,
last spring in three weeks shipped out
325 cars of stock.
1t is great pleasure to feed the
lambs, to see them buck and play.
Last winter I fed one car of old ewes
that went over the top-brought the
highest market price of any ewes
that ever sold on the market at the
Denver Live Stock & Commission
Company, at st. Joseph, Mo. They
brought $14.25 per hundred. The
man cleared goo on the car load.
That is not bad showing for a Mis-
sourian that never fed sheep in his
life before.
They have fine roads here. You
sure can haul some loads. An aver
age load for two borses is two and
one-half to three tons. They have
big horses, the average weight of the
horses is about 1900 lbs. Not many
ponies here.
They raise lots of spring wheat
here. 1t runs about 40 to 65 bushels
to the acre of good year, but this
year we have had no rain and not
munh snow so the water was scarce
and the wheat made about 25 bushels
to the acre.
We started to plowing about the
first Of April breaking alfalfa. We use
four horses. In ground that has been
broke we use three. You can plow
llday and feel like running foot
race at night, for you ride all the
time. They have q turning plow
here. Ifever I farm in Missouri am
going to get one of these plows. They
will work on a great many farms.
They are the two-way plow on wheels
with two 14-inch plows on them. You
drive through the field, raise thai
plow and turn around. Let the Other
plow down, go right back the way
you came. You never have any dead
furrows in the field, neither does the
horses tramp up the ground where
you have plowed. There is no rocl
Ia the way here at all.
] am in Yields County. / was talk
ing to the assessor last night. I'll
told me he had just completed th,
books for the year Of 1919, and the as
sessed valuation for this county wa
S107,O00,O 900, SO you can see that the
have something. There is one car i
Yields county to every four persons
There are about 5000 cars in th
county.
And sleep-It 10 the finest place !
the summer I ever saw. We alway
have breeze here. You don't swea
yourself to death here.
But talk about watermelons, 20