418 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



feed is poor and the cattle correspondingly so. In Nevada 

 and Idaho there is better feed for cattle, though the severe 

 winters sometimes cause very great losses to the cattle 

 owners. Whole herds have sometimes perished from cold 

 and starvation. 



In Colorado farmers are, I think, more successful. If I 

 were bound to go West, Colorado would be my choice. 

 It possesses a climate as fine as that of southern California, 

 the chances of success are as good as anywhere in the West, 

 and it is a growing country. In seventeen years the popu- 

 lation of Denver has increased from twenty thousand to one 

 hundred and twenty thousand. A farmer in south-eastern 

 Colorado told me that his sales from one hundred and sixty 

 acres amounted in a year to twenty-five hundred dollars. 

 His principal crops are alfalfa, potatoes and melons, and 

 they are raised by irrigation. Corn is left on the stalk all 

 winter, and picked as needed for feeding. At Iron Springs 

 pioneers are taking up government lands at a dollar and a 

 quarter per acre, and selling to a syndicate at five dollars 

 per acre. The syndicate is Ijringing water from the 

 Arkansas River by irrigating ditches, and may be expected 

 to make the naturally rich soil very in-oductive. 



A iirain farmer or a stock raiser must necessarily have a 

 large farm, and for such the West is of course the place. 

 On the other hand, there is inMarshfield, Mass., a small farm 

 of but a dozen acres, the sales from which last year equalled 

 those from a seven-hundrcd-acre grain and stock ranch in 

 which twenty thousand dollars is invested. The small farm 

 fleets tenfold the attention per acre that the large one does, 

 and that is what pays. If UKiny of our large farmers would 

 expend their labor on twenty-five acres of their best land, 

 and let the rest grow up to Avood, they would reap a much 

 larger profit than they do to-day. To young men, young 

 farmers, and particularly to young married men, I say Don't 

 fo West ! I have never found a good place waiting for some 

 one to step into it. For every good place there are plenty 

 of ap[)licants, and if the i)lace demands more than ordinary 

 intelligence there are })lenty of men on hand to fill it. No 

 matter how far West you go, there arc intelligent men there 

 before you ; and, though we regard our Boston as the Athens 



