DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



219 



They have satisfied themselves down there that there is practically nothing 

 that cannot be raised under the proper system of dry farming. 



The town of Amarillo several years ago was a hamlet of five hun- 

 dred to two thousand people. The year I met our friend hauling water 

 I went out and looked at some land for a stock ranch. The man offered 

 it to us at ten dollars an acre. We turned it down; thought it wasn't 

 worth it — didn't think it was worth it to raise cattle on and we were sure 

 it wasn't worth it for anything else. Today, however, that land is selling 

 from $15 to $35 an acre — the same identical land we turned down,, because 

 we only thought it was fit for stock raising. That whole country is 

 dotted with grain elevators. I was astonished to go in there and find 

 where two years ago they had one elevator now they have got three. 

 Amarillo has grown up to be a city of 15,000 and growing every day. T 

 said to a man who was building grain elevators, "Don't you think you are 

 taking quite a chance in this proposition?" He says, "I will admit at first 

 we thought we were, but we built one elevator and filled it, built another 

 and filled that, and the third is full this year and we have to build some 

 more." I found that all over this Staked Plains area they have built ele- 

 vators, and, as he said, they are filling them. To me it was remarkable 

 that in that short space of time so much should have been accomplished 

 under this hitherto unknown system or method or science, whatever you 

 are a mind to call it,' of raising crops on land without the use of irriga- 

 tion. They have not as much water down there as you have here. Prob- 

 ably 18 1-2 inches would be the average, taking in my own territory of 

 New Mexico. 



When the people of the Panhandle of Texas got that pretty well 

 located they began looking over the line into New Mexico. It was just 

 the same kind of country. The eastern part of New Mexico, the south- 

 eastern corner, is simply an extension of the Staked Plains. In fact these 

 Texans never got over the fact that they didn't get it when they got 

 it from the Mexican Government, and they looked with longing eyes on 

 that country, and they said, "Here What's the difference any way? It 

 is only an imaginary line between us. If we can farm Texas we can do 

 the same in New Mexico." They took the country by storm. I remember 

 a few years ago we thought that that was scarcely fit for cattle range, 

 and wasn't worth looking after. Today the land is held at $15 an acre. 

 Dry farmers have gone out on the plains, where there is no irrigation water 

 and have done well. Around Las Vegas, New Mexico, where T have made 

 my home for several years, there is a grant that belongs to the city — a 

 grant of 500,000 acres. I think ten years ago a man could have gone in 

 there to those trustees and said, "Gentlemen, I want to buy this 500,000 

 acres, and I will give you a dollar an acre for it," and they would never 

 have let him get out of their sight till they got the money, because they 

 thought it was all it was worth. A Methodist minister came in there from 

 back east, and he was a pretty good man for the east and a minister. He 

 looked around and said, "Why don't you farm this land?" They said, 

 "You can't farm it; it is just sheep land and nothing else; it is not even 



