52 



DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



I am not in favor of conservation in the meaning we are to lock things up 

 in their present state for the future generation. The greatest waste was 

 to let the cattle run on the grass all winter, without care or feed. They 

 got poor and then it took half the next summer to put back what they lost 

 in the winter. How are you going to find any greater waste than that ? 

 There we are losing in the winter what we made in the summer time. 

 What has changed that? It is the present system of working, and a man 

 makes five times as much as he did under range conditions, and he keeps 

 his animals growing all winter instead of losing. He is not wasting the 

 material that keeps them alive in the winter, and so today we are com- 

 mencing this system out there of keeping our animals growing and keep- 

 ing but one crop of steers on the grass instead of three or four, and this 

 is the thing that is bringing about such a reform in livestock conditions in 

 the Rocky Mountain region. 



You are interested in our livestock conditions, — many of your people 

 come out to our state to buy feeders, and we have found out and they have 

 found out that where the cattle have been kept right out in that mountain 

 country, they need to go into a fe^ed lot. With our new system, conditions 

 are much better. Those who come from the corn belt and from the moun- 

 tain district have a very active interest in the growing of livestock. Their 

 interests are exactly the same. The same thing is true of this entire 

 Western country. The Southwest furnishes us with some of the things we 

 need, and we go north for other things. So it goes, north and south, east 

 and west over this country. You are producing things which we need 

 and we are producing things which you need. We do not make the most 

 of them — bring about all their different results. We are asking for new 

 people and new capital in our country and so are you. If we can, through 

 such shows as you are making up here, and as other state fairs and ex- 

 positions in the West are doing — induce the people in the over-crowded 

 districts of the East to come West, we will not only benefit them, but we 

 will benefit ourselves greatly. ' It is to our advantage — it is to the advant- 

 age of everyone of us. I discovered here in Wichita and among the Kan- 

 sans that were here today a splendid spirit — a spirit that you got the best 

 thing in the West and you are going to make it still better. That is the 

 spirit that will build this great Western country and this government. 

 This Congress can exert a great influence in educating our people to 

 handle our soil. I have been East and found great farms thrown back and 

 a waste because they say they are worn out. We want no such condition 

 in the West and we must have diversified farming and we must look to 

 this livestock feature here or we will go the same way. Let us learn the 

 lesson of diversified farming in order that the fertility of the soil may be 

 maintained and show splendid increases in crop production — show splendid 

 increase instead of deterioration as it has in many other portions of the 

 country. These are the advantages we have, having observed what has 

 happened in many other countries, but we should be wise enough to take 

 advantage of them. 



I am sorry I cannot stay and hear the balance of the discussions in 



