DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



standing, taking the good of the country as a starting point, it is better 

 for New Mexico, and better for any country to have a hundred settlers 

 with a hundred head of cattle that they can take care of than ten men 

 with ten thousand sheep. (Applause.) They are better taxpayers. In 

 fact they have got something to pay taxes on. And while the big herds 

 are gone, especially in the southeastern part of New Mexico, in their place 

 have come a lot of little fellows, that are going to build the country up 

 and raise their children and build up little towns. It is astonishing the 

 number of little towns and postoffices that have started up. The post- 

 offices have been established so fast that we in New Mexico can't keep 

 track of them. Every day in the year there is one established somewhere. 

 Standing on the rear platfo^jii of the train, coming through a country 

 that was one day a great buffalo ranch, and only ten years ago was noth- 

 ing but a sheep and cattle range, just as far as the eye could see there 

 is nothing but settlers' houses. Every quarter today has a house on it, 

 just as far as you can see, and they are there to stay, and I don't thijik 

 anything is going to shake them loose. There is a great deal of fear that 

 some of them will be overconfident and won't use Mr. Campbell's meth- 

 ods. That is one thing they are going to suffer from. ^ I don't suppose 

 there is any subject on which there is more ignorance than the dry farm- 

 ing plan. These people down there see what has been done, and instead 

 of studying it they go ahead and plow the ground and put in a crop. 

 As I say, they have had several years of rain, which has helped them mar- 

 velously. But there is a great amount of ignorance on the subject which 

 the men down there are trying to overcome. They are about the same 

 as the Irishman who went to work one morning and the next mornings 

 Pat didn't, show up for work. The boss asked him why he didn't come 

 to work, and he said, "Sure, yisterday was Lincoln's birthday and Oi stayed 

 at home and celebrated." The other fellow said, "Why did you celebrate 

 Lincoln's birthday?" "Sure, it is because William Jennings Bryan lives 

 there." (Laughter.) 



That's about the way with a lot of those dry farmers. They have 

 some ideas of it, but at the bottom they don't really know the true 

 theories underlying it. In New Mexico especially the Santa Fe and Rock 

 Island railroads have had Campbell out there lecturing. The}'' started 

 model farms all over that country, which he looks after to show the state 

 an example and educate the people in the methods of Campbell farming. 

 At any ratfe it is due to the people coming in there that they should be 

 educated, that they may know it is not all pie and cake — that they must 

 work — that the ground must be thoroughly and repeatedly turned over 

 and worked and that now and then they are going to have a dry year 

 which will strain them to pull through. But it seems to me they probably 

 will be successful on the average down there. They have been as success- 

 ful, on the average, as the ordinary farmer east of the Mississippi River. 



Gentlemen, that is all I have to say. (Applause.) 



CHAIRMAN M'CABE: The next on the program will be a talk by 

 W. S. Pershing, of Limon, Colorado, on the subject of "Farming in Arid 

 Eastern Colorado." (Applause.) 



