LINE OF LEAST RESISTANCE 51 



was to the southwest. The hardship and 

 disaster that have followed in the wake of this 

 movement have since served to develop one 

 simple truth, i. e., that, if these lands are to 

 be made available for farming at all, the 

 farmer must take into account the ratio be- 

 tween rainfall and evaporation. Toward the 

 south, twenty inches of rain means less than 

 toward the north. Arid bench lands in the 

 intermountain valleys of the State of Wash- 

 ington, for instance, can produce wheat with 

 ten inches of rain because the task of retain- 

 ing the scant moisture in the soil to feed the 

 crops is more easily accomplished than in the 

 South. Texas fails to grow wheat with twenty 

 inches of rain because of the greedy sun. 

 During the last decade in western Texas a 

 state larger and more fertile than the German 

 Empire settlers abandoned thirteen million 

 acres of range, upon whose waterless plains 

 their folorn hopes had led them a decade be- 

 fore. Consider what this means. An area 

 equal to New England, excepting Maine and 

 New Hampshire, reverted to the range. 



Yet, in the fact of the cruel experiences of 

 these "nesters" in the Southwest, the last le- 

 gion of the army started in motion by the 



