COMING OF THE SETTLER. 85 



upon thousands of cattle and horses ranged over those 

 broad prairies, watering at the river and grazing back 

 over the prairies for miles upon each side of it. Then 

 the settlers began to creep up its borders and gradually 

 the stockmen found their watering places fenced up, 

 and where once there had been miles upon miles of open 

 water along the river they found their cattle turned back 

 by the farmers' fences. 



This was the beginning of the end, for about that 

 time the effect of overgrazing began to tell on the carry- 

 ing capacity of the ranges, and one hard winter literally 

 swept the country bare of stock. 



The Settlers' Second Attack on the Arid Regions. A 

 few years later, encouraged by a series of wet years, the 

 farmers again took up their attack on the desert and 

 slowly began to force their way westward. The class 

 of men who came this second time were better prepared 

 to meet the vicissitudes of desert farming and had suffi- 

 cient means to meet a few bad years. Fortunately for 

 the country, as well as their own future, there followed 

 a decade of splendid years. The line of farms worked 

 steadily westward until the little town of Hutchinson, 

 Kans., which at one time was considered in the very 

 heart of the desert, was left far behind. 



Ask any old-time farmer what made the change, and 

 he will promptly assure you that the climate has 

 changed. He will declare that it rains more than it used 

 to and that there is not so much wind as formerly, all 

 of which he believes accounts for the success of the 

 farmer in the desert. However, the weather records kept 

 for forty years at Fort Dodge, Kans., and almost as long 

 at other western army posts, prove conclusively that 

 taken by ten-year periods there has been no appreciable 



