THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



lasting mountains and the warmth of its unfailing sun- 

 shine, new dreams of liberty and equality for men. 



That this is not the popular conception of the mission 

 of the Far West may be frankly acknowledged. The 

 region is little known to the great middle - classes in 

 American life. It has been demonstrated by actual stat- 

 istics that only three per cent, of our people travel more 

 than fifty miles from their homes in the course of a year. 

 Those who make extended pleasure tours gravitate not 

 unnaturally to Europe, drawn by the fascination of 

 quaint foreign scenes and the fame of historic places. 

 But the comparatively few whose business or fancy has 

 taken them across the continent fail, as a rule, to grasp 

 the true significance of the wide empire which stretches 

 from the middle of the great plains to the shores of the 

 Western sea. 



It is a common human instinct to regard unfamiliar 

 conditions with distrust. The first settlers in Iowa en- 

 gaged in desperate rivalry for possession of the wooded 

 lands, thinking that no soil was fit for agricultural pur- 

 poses unless it furnished the pioneer an opportunity to 

 cut down trees and pull up stumps. "Land that won't 

 grow trees won't grow anything/' was the maxim of the 

 knowing ones. Their fathers had cleared the forests on 

 the slopes of the Alleghanies to make way for the plough 

 and the field, and the new generation could not conceive 

 that land which bore rich crops of wild grasses and lay 

 plastic and level for the husbandman to begin his labors, 

 could have any value. A great deal of hard work was 

 wasted before it was discovered that nature had provided 

 new and superior conditions in the land beyond the 

 Mississippi. 



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