The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 43 



into one year's crop. Congress said this is extensive farming 

 instead of intensive. To enable these men to make a go of it 

 we must give them more land. Consequently, they gave us the 

 Enlarged Homestead act, giving 320 instead of 160 acres of 

 desert land. Millions of acres have been taken up under that 

 act. You go out on the Great Northern across Montana, or 

 on the Northern Pacific, or on the Oregon Short Line up through 

 southern Idaho, and you will find thousands of acres there to- 

 day covered with wheat crops, and threshing machines and 

 self-binders, and little towns and elevators. They are making 

 land which was only worth 5 cents an acre per year as a grazing Five-Cent- 

 proposition bring in from $5 to $10 an acre or more per year, 'l^ ?'^^. -'^""" 

 Later on Congress said, this dry farming land is about all gone ; g^g Yearhi 

 all that we have left is rough land ; much of it stands straight 

 up. Here is a grazing proposition, that land cannot grow crops. 

 Consequently, in December last, another homestead law was 

 passed known as the Grazing Homestead law, giving the entry- 

 man 640 acres of designated grazing land, and since December 

 29, 1916, there have been 45,000 applications covering 18 million 

 acres of that land. I call your attention to this as showing how 

 the people out West are now going after the grazing proposition 

 where there is a chance for a poor man to get a little ranch 

 of his own. 



In this connection it should be remembered that the Western 

 open range is carrying every head of stock it is capable of 

 carrying. 



Now, doesn't it stand to reason, if we have any land at all 

 left back here in the South, say 70 million acres, or any other 

 number of acres, it is up to you to get busy? Won't it raise 

 something? I don't know how good it is. It may be half 

 swamp, or very low grade, or sandy, but it cannot be any less South Offers 

 productive per acre than millions of acres of land in the West Only Cheap 

 out of which tremendous amounts of money are being realized ^"""* ^^"^ 

 today. I think that if you will take a broad comprehensive view Coantrii 

 of the land situation of the country you will come to the con- 

 clusion that there is no question of doubt that you can success- 

 fully compete on this land with the rest of the country; in fact 

 the matter of food production can hardly be said to be longer 

 in the competitive stage ; it is rather a question of getting enough. 



While in the new development of the raw land it is always 

 best to have cattle and sheep first, I want to say to you that 



