The Omaha morning bee., 1925-03-10
T O d a Y
Life on the Desert.
Opportunity Is There.
Alfalfa Beats Gold.
The Hodge Brothers
Ranch.
By ARTHUR BRISBANE.

(Written at Barstow, on the
Santa Fe, 1000 feet above the level
of the Pacific, which is less than
100 miles away in straight line.)
Are there opportunities left for
Young Americans in the far west,
or are the opportunities all gone?
For an answer, see the Hodge
brothers alfalfa ranch at Palliser.
on the Santa Fe railroad. about II
miles west of here. You will learn
courage, ambition and desire at
work, will find plenty of opportuni-
ties-especially for work.
Gilbert and Robert Hodge of
Buffalo came from a rich family,
one of Buffalo's streets is named
for them. The money disappeared,
about the time they we're born.
That was fortunate for them.
The best opportunity for real
man is necessity.
These two brothers, barely 20,
did not look for some rich relative
10 offer a soft spot. They read
tnat desert land could be made fer
tile and productive. Under the
homestead act the two brothers
took up about 500/a acres here, on
The Mohave desert.
1t was land absolutely barren,
apparently. The population con-
sisted of jackrabbits, able to cover
rlany miles day, and few tiny
donkeys almost as swift as rabbits,
descended from burrows whose
prospecting owners generations ago
Lad left their bones bleaching on
The hills.
The Hodge ranch shows what
work can produce in the desert.
The fields of alfalfa, that grows
10 inches high, are fenced against
iackrabbits.
A comfortable house for the
brothers and their mother takes
the place of tent in which the
brothers lived, and worked, until
the war broke out. Then they left
everything, entered the army and
went to Europe.
A little garage houses the car
that makes them independent of
distance. There is "a stable for a
team of horses used to cut the al
falfa and run the baling machine,
and a very contented cow that
Yields % quarts of milk a day, on
an alfalfa diet.
Everything there, the brothers
built with their own hands, includ-
ing a pumping station of concrete,
the installation of an electric pump,
and a big reservoir for irrigation
that holds $685. gallons.
A contractor wanted $4,000 to
build the reservoir and guarantee
it water tight. The boys didn't
have the $4,000. They dug and
built the reservoir themselves with
concrete sufficiently high above the
ground. 1t is water tight.
The materials cost them $175.
For every pound of dry alfalfa
put on the land 500 pounds of
water is needed-1,0 100000 pounds
for ton of alfalfa. They do it
and make it pay. An electric line
near by brings white power" from
tho mountains and serves them
cheaply.
It costs only $3.50 to pump
100000 gallons of water. There
on the desert, where donkeys and
iackrabbits nibble sage brush and
grease wood" shrubs, the water,
n unlimited quantities, is within
8 feet of the surface. And that
marvelously fertile soil, 15 feet
deep, washed down from mountain
sides through thousands Of CEN
turies, produces seven crops of al
falfa between May and October.
And that pays.
II supplies all the money that the
brothers need to live and to inn
prove their property.
Seventeen acres of alfalfa yield
each season 127 tons, which sells at
the railroad siding, a mile and half
away, for $27 ton-$3, APO worth
of alfalfa from II acres. The des-
ert land plus courage, hard work
and water, yields S1S4 to the acre.
1t is an absolutely sure crop. No
failures there. The sun shines all
through the growing season. The
water rises faithfully from subter-
ranean streams, and is directed
through irrigation channels to the
alfalfa. Seven times they cut it,
and seven times it grows, a crop
more certain than ever was raised
in the wonderful Nile valley. Some
times Nile waters failed. Desert
irrigation never fails.
Is the case of the Hodge broth
ers exceptional and not to be dupl-