CAMBPELL'S SOIL CULTURE MANUAL 35 



iest work, for this is possible here much more than in the 

 cramped fields of the older states. Plowing and seeding 

 and harvesting will all be done much more quickly and 

 better than ever before. There are few obstacles to good 

 work. There are no boulders to break the plowshare 

 and no stumps to bend the sickle. It is a country admir- 

 ably adapted to the ideal farming. And the men who go 

 out to conquer this desert land and to compel success 

 under adverse conditions are just the men to build up 

 ideal homes. 



It is in this vast region that railroad building is going 

 on now more rapidly than any place else in the world. 

 Nothing could be more significant. Men who invest their 

 millions in railroad enterprises do not do so without con- 

 sideration of what it means. A few years ago the railroad 

 managers declared that if they could do so, they would 

 pull up some of the tracks they had laid in this coun- 

 try; and today these same tracks mark the pathway of 

 immense commerce. Because there were failures due to 

 misdirected efforts on the part of the farmers is not proof 

 that the country is useless. On the contrary it has been 

 demonstrated, and this is better known by the railroad 

 builders than by any others, that the semi-arid region 

 is destined to be in a few years the richest portion of the 

 United States. 



Looking far into the future one may see this region 

 dotted with fine farms, with countless herds of blooded 

 animals grazing, with school houses in every township, 

 with branch lines of railroads, with electric interurban 

 trolly lines running in a thousand directions, with tele- 

 phone systems innumerable, with rural mail routes reach- 



