DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



9 



Ladies and gentlemen, you are heartily welcome to Utah. The walls 

 you see about you — these great mountain ranges — are not placed there 

 to keep visitors out. They are intended to make you prolong your stay. 

 People become so enchanted with gazing on them and on the beautiful val- 

 leys lying between, that they want to get a time extension on their return 

 tickets. And some of them forget all about other places, and settle here 

 permanently. We hope some of you will do that. (Applause.) 



We are glad to see so many present who are eminent in their re- 

 spective lines of work. Perhaps I should particularize; but there are so 

 many of them that time will not permit. We are honored in their pres- 

 ence; and I am sure we shall be greatly helped. To all of you I extend 

 the freedom of the State; and whether your stay with us is long or short, 

 we shall make it as pl-easant as possible. 



May this Congress realize all our hopes in advancing the interests of 

 the arid lands, the great West, and of our glorious Nation. (Applause.) 



HON. JOHN C. CUTLER (Presiding): Ladies and gentlemen, the 

 next speaker will be the mayor of the city, Hon. John S. Bransford, who 

 will welcome you. (Applause.) 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 



(By Hon. John S. Bransford, Mayor of Salt Lake City.) 

 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Trans-Missouri Dry Farming Con- 

 gress: 



It affords me very great pleasure to be here on behalf of this great inter- 

 mountain city to extend to this representative body of soil scientists and 

 practical farmers a cordial welcome, and to express to you the earnest hope 

 that you will avail yourselves of their hospitality while you are here. We 

 stand assured, Mr. Chairman, when we look into the intelligent faces of 

 those present that although you have met here for the express purpose of 

 discussing a dry subject in detail, it will not be treated in a dry manner. 



Farming is regarded by the city born and bred as being more or less 

 prosaic in its character and nature. Plowing the land, sowing the seed, 

 reaping the harvest, and all the other operations necessary to the production 

 of good and plentiful crops, do not usually offer to the mind of the average 

 city man anything of enough romantic interest to require his consideration. 



I believe that in the topics which will occup}'- your minds during this 

 conference, and which have brought you together, many things will be said, 

 many ideas brought out. that will be of great benefit to the people, not 

 only of this state, but of all the arid and semi-arid states; yes, I might say 

 to the people of the Nation. 



This gathering is expressive, it would appear to me, of what might be 

 termed the gospel of action. You are the exponents, in a large measure, of 

 that gospel. You have come, I take it, to present to us a particular phase 

 of this gospel, a phase of it which is opposite of what has hitherto been, 

 regarded as the orthodox, in schemes of desert-land redemption. 



I have said that you were the exponents of a special phase of the gospel 

 of action, and I have no doubt the missionaries in your particular field of 



