DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



11 



I now take much pleasure in introducing to you the President of the 

 Commercial Club of Salt Lake City, the Honorable W. J. Halloran. (Ap- 

 plause.) 



HON. W. J. HALLORAN: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 

 gress: On behalf of the Commercial Club of this city I extend to you the 

 welcome of the Club during your stay and hope you will make the Club 

 apartments your headquarters while you are here. The Club has taken a 

 very active interest in this Congress, and it is our desire that your efforts 

 shall be successful from every standpoint. 



The work of this Congress is of vital importance to western agricul- 

 tural interests and I believe that your labors and conclusions at this 

 session will mark the beginning of a long career of usefulness for your 

 organization. 



We have here a city of 100,000 people, contented and happy. Our city 

 has prospered beyond our expectations in the past few years. I may say, 

 gentlemen, that we have grown in population in the past two years at 

 least twenty thousand people. We are situated here in a beautiful valley, 

 wih no competing point for from five to eight hundred miles in all direc- 

 tions. We are not only extending our farming interest and our cattle 

 and stockraising interests, but our mining interests have grown until we 

 have become, in the last few years, the center of mining in the United 

 States. We have here the greatest smelting center in the United States, 

 and the prospects for the future of this city never looked brighter. 



I thank you, gentlemen, and again extend to you the courtesies of the 

 Club, and bid you welcome. (Applause.) 



GOV. JOHN C. CUTLER (Presiding): Gentlemen, I take pleasure in 

 introducing to you Mr. John T. Burns, of Colorado, who will 

 reply to the addresses of welcome. (Applause.) 



MR. JOLIN T. BURNS: Mr. Governor and Chairman, and ladies 

 and gentlemen of the Dry Farming Congress: I am not a "Dry Farmer." 

 In fact I am not a farmer in any sense of the word, but being from 

 Colorado — where dry farming has certainly 43iade good, the pleasant duty 

 has devolved upon me of making response, in behalf of the Trans-Mis- 

 souri Dry Farming Congress, to the very clever words of welcome that 

 have been given to us by the representatives of this state and the con- 

 vention city. 



It is indeed fitting that we should meet here in Utah to discuss the 

 scientific farming; for this congress is a pioneer in a field of unexplored 

 possibilities, and, by the handwriting upon the walls of this convention hall, 

 we find that Utah is the pioneer in irrigation and in dry farming. (Ap- 

 plause.) So, my friends, you see we have merely returned home, like the 

 prodigal son, to allow our genial president, Fisher Harris, to kill the fatted 

 calf of Utah's traditional hospitality. 



In accepting the entertainment offered to us by our hosts in this 

 city, the Congress will always keep in mind the fact that here, in this 

 historic spot, where men forced an unwilling soil to give up untold wealth, 

 where, far from other civilization, and without hope of transportation, de- 



