104 



THE IBRIGATION AGE. 



There is no danger of the Opuntia running wild 

 and again producing thorns when set out in the desert, 

 for the cactus was originally thornless. 



Leaving its undisputed fodder value out of the 

 question, the tremendous value of the Opuntia to stock- 

 men may be gained from the fact that last year one- 

 year-old plants in California, on unsuitable cactus 

 ground, produced an average of over ninety tons of fod- 

 der to the acre. This means a crop of about two. hun- 

 dred tons per acre for older plants in cactus country. 



The spineless cactus has passed the experimental 

 stage, and its commercial propagation has been under- 

 taken by a Los Angeles corporation known as The 

 Thornless Cactus Farming Company, to whom Mr. 

 Burbank has intrusted the varieties which he has per- 

 fected for distribution, and this concern is endeavoring 

 to very rapidly get the new fodder and fruit plants into 

 the localities where they will do the most good. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



BY G. L. SHUJIWAY. 



Wyoming's Wool-Growers' Convention, and the 

 National Wool-Growers' Convention, at Helena, have 

 recently expressed themselves in no uncertain terms, 

 regarding the Grazing Bill proposed in Congress. One 

 by one the industrial congresses of the west announce 

 their opposition to policies of Federal Control. Here 

 are two of the resolutions adopted that gives the spirit 

 which seems to permeate the entire west : 



"No. 3. Eesolved, That we are opposed to the 

 imposition of regulations by public land officials, where- 

 by the rulings of the department officers are inter- 

 preted as being above and superior to law. 



"No. 4. Resolved, That we deplore the methods 

 adopted by Gifford Pinchot, chief of the Bureau of For- 

 estry, in disseminating wrong impressions of the exist- 

 ing range and forest conditions in Wyoming, through 

 eastern newspapers and magazines. False statements 

 are written as truths, and misrepresentations become 

 prolific with suspicions as to the honesty and integrity 

 of Wyoming stockmen. Such policies are detrimental 

 to the integrity of government officials, and retard the 

 development of our< state." 



There is more of the same kind, but is it not a 

 pity that the conduct of our bureau heads is such, 

 and their theories so intense, that an industrial con- 

 gress must give the lie to their oft-reiterated accusa- 

 ions. It can be said without fear of contravention 

 that several of our recent industrial conventions were 

 not controlled by "lick-spittles of the federal bureaus" 

 as our friend Lute Wilcox so tersely put it. Only Sac- 

 ramento disgraced herself by going over body and 

 breeches, and not giving the delegates opportunity to 

 express themselves. 



"Hands off" is the slogan of the entire west, and 

 it applies to bureaus in the ramifications of their usur- 

 pations, in official capacity as well as attempts to con- 

 trol industrial expression, and in the dissemination of 

 "tainted news." 



Nothing has been so severely censured (and justly 

 so) of recent date, by the muck-rakers, and enthusiastic 

 reformers, as "the system's" policy of scattering 

 "tainted news," but the press bureau of our federal 

 government can put the system to the bad, in holding 

 up the shining virtues of its satellites, and lauding all 

 their undertakings. 



Yet there are dozens and no doubt hundreds of 

 silent workers, without salaries, or other means of self- 

 exploitation at public expense, who are daily perform- 

 ing more actual public service than the most adver- 

 tised man in the entire Washington contingent. I re- 

 fer to such men as H. A. Green, who originated "Tree- 

 Growing Clubs of America" and Luther Burbank, and 

 men of that stamp. An individual finds it necessary 

 to originate an outside movement for the purpose of 

 promulgating the work, for which the Forestry service 

 was created, and from which it has been diverted. It 

 remained for an individual to create a spineless cactus, 

 while we have a bureau of plant industry supported by 

 the government. The trouble with our federal organ- 

 izations are that they are too much taken up with poli- 

 tics, self-congratulations, etc., to devote much time to 

 the actual work for which their being exists. 



Following the sheep men's convention came the 

 meetings of two live stock associations. The executive 

 committee of one, which was dominated by Murdo 

 McKenzie, who runs some 40,000 head of cattle on 

 forest reserves, was naturally favorable to the govern- 

 ment policy. Mr. McKenzie comes about as near the 

 eastern conception of a "cattle baron" as there is in ex- 

 istence today, yet he is hand and glove with the ad- 

 ministration, which pretends to oppose all that he rep- 

 resents. 



Just a word to the east regarding this bogie man 

 that press bureaus and eastern contemporaries have 

 builded, and called the "cattle baron." They tell us 

 that parents in the eastern section of the United States 

 tell their children to be good or they will be given to 

 the cattle barons. In the middle west he is a mon- 

 strous creature, and visions picture horns and hoofs 

 and armor as his rough exterior, and so vivid are 

 impressions we have obtained that here in the west, 

 where we have lived for more than two score years 

 and have never seen a cattle baron, we imagine he 

 must live just over the hill. 



