Douglas daily dispatch., 1927-07-03
EXPERIENCE SHOWS HOW LOSSES
MAY Be TURNED into PROFITS.
BY CHOOSING CROPS and STOCK.
Inexhaustble Water Supply Permits of Raising All
Sorts of Food Crops, Yet Much Grain Is Being
Shipped Into Valley; Comparisons of Failure and
Success Under Identical Conditions Shown With the
Reasons Therefor.

Another man has done the same
thing with cattle to take the place of
chickens. Most years the cattle DO
well on the grazing, but there are
times and seasons when they will
starve to death by wholesale. This
man raises sufficient grain and hay
every year, while the farmers OF the
his stock will keep fat all the time.
He has reduced his herds to measure
up with his stacks of feed, but ne
states that his cattle are so much
better and bring so much more on the
market that he is making much more
money with much less worry than
ever before.
The dairies and poultrymen of the
Douglas district alone import more
than a million dollars worth of feeds
every year, while the farmer OF the
valley raise vegetables and throw
them to their pigs because they can
not find a market for them. They
are beginning to think. They are
coming to realize that because the
! truck gardens around city like Los
Angeles make thousands of dollars IS
no reason why a truck garden IN one
of the most thinly populated areas III
the world should make money
Every year has seen a rush to see
who could get the first sweet corn on
the market and who could raise the
earliest tomatoes and watermelons.
Onlv those who got there first got q
good price for their products anu
then again those who had the latest
in some fruits and vegetables had q
fair chance of a good profit.
Those who entered the scramble
for the early market were harraSSed
by frost and by cold weather and had
to replant many times. Those VINO
planted late for the fall market often
lost everything because of early trosts
and cold snaps.
Experience is teaching those who
are willing to learn 1t is pointed
out that there is no great demand
here for vegetables and fruits. That
the demand is more for stock feed. a
man can realize more on plain grain
and hay if he can manage to 1rr1gate
an early cutting and let the July
rains produce a second cutting Tor
him, than he can on vegetables until
enough of them can be raised to
make a cooperative and extended
market system possible. There is al
ways a market for baled hay OF any
kind 1t won't spoil like vegetables
will. It can be sold for shipment TO
some other place and it can ne
stored until good price comes up.
One of the things that is being
brought home to the farmers is that
there is a reason why seed houses
advertise that their seeds are grown
under conditions the same as those
here. A man can purchase sack OF
chicken feed and plant it and he will
get some sort of a crop from it, but
he can pay a dollar or two more
hundred for selected acclimated seed
and get an almost perfect crop OF
high quality produce.
A large number of farmers are at
this time getting solidly set toward
making profits and enlarging their
cultivated areas. They are learning
what to plant, how and when TO
plant it and how to care for it after
it is planted.
Even without electric power many
are making money The water supply
is being proved ineXhaustible. The
soil and climate have been found 20
be right for a great list of things
The farmer is expending his efforts
more efficiently and more thought
fully and the results are showing.
Time will make the valley if moth
ing else does. The rising prices in
the grain and hay market, the posi-
bility that cotton will go up because
of floods in other cotton states and a
general trend toward improved meth
ods and more intelligent selection cf
crops are all aiding.
New farmers with ability and eX-
perience are one great need, and this
wear has brought about a situation
that is likely to bring many here, for
although man will stand being
drowned out of his holding many
times he is likely finally to decide TO
go where there are no floods and
when those making that decision look
for place to go, the Sulphur Spring
valley is going to command their at
tention.