THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



better sugar than Louisiana, and will revolutionize the 

 tanning industry by supplanting oak and hemlock bark 

 with canaigre. With beef and mutton, wool and hides, 

 they already feed and clothe the East. They have finer 

 harbors than Boston and New York, and a sea-coast 

 which faces a greater foreign world. 



There is no Eastern State that compares with almost 

 any one of these giant commonwealths of the compara- 

 tively unknown West in anything save present develop- 

 ment, which includes, of course, population, wealth, and 

 political influence. So emphatic and unmistakable is the 

 superiority with which nature endowed the Far West 

 that it may be said in all seriousness that if the Pilgrim 

 Fathers had landed at San Diego rather than at Ply. 

 mouth, that half of the country which now contains over 

 ninety per cent, of the total population would be regarded 

 as comparatively worthless. It would have been difficult 

 to settle it to the best advantage. To illustrate : imagine 

 the excitement which would occur if the people of New 

 England should awaken some morning to find themselves 

 in possession of the climate and diversified resources of 

 Colorado, Washington, or California ! Even the sane 

 brain which rules the land of steady habits would grow 

 dizzy in the presence of such vast possibilities. And yet 

 Colorado, Washington, and California represent but a 

 small proportion of the country which rests under the 

 wide arch of our western sky. 



In briefly reviewing the salient points of difference be- 

 tween the old section and the new, the feature which 

 constitutes at once the most characteristic and the most 

 fundamental advantage of the West has been left for 

 separate treatment. Not until this feature has been con- 



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