10 



THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



cate the people and to educate the plants. At these annual conventions, 

 we receive the inestimable benefit of the combined knowledge of all the 

 state and federal experimenters and practical farmers in the Trans- 

 Missouri states, thereby preventing unnecessary failure and saving tens 

 of thousands of dollars, which would otherwise be expended in duplicat- 

 ing unsuccessful experiments. If new settlers, who can ill afford to 

 make mistakes, will avoid experiments and confine their efforts along the 

 lines of scientific agriculture, which have been clearly demonstrated as 

 successful, we need have no fears of the result. 



"Under approved dry farming methods, millions upon millions of 

 acres of public land can and will be settled, and this conquest is easy 

 as compared with the early settlement of New England. There the pioneer 

 faced a rigorous climate and was menaced by merciless savages. There 

 the forests had to be cleared, the underbrush burnt, the stumps and 

 stones hauled away. There the soil was miserly and the pumpkins on 

 the steep hillsides had to be braced to keep them from rolling away; 

 but despite adverse conditions, that New England community, built solidly 

 upon the four comer stones of justice, learning, liberty and law, grew 

 and prospered and became so powerful that later on their ideas ga,ve 

 form to the National Government and wholesome life to many of the 

 great institutions of the West. 



"Then followed the conquest of the middle prairie states, but, mind 

 you, present day difficulties are as nothing compared to theirs; for dur- 

 ing the last twenty-five years the pulse and pace of the world has mar- 

 velously quickened. The prairie schooner has been superseded by the 

 immigrant car; the messenger on horse back has been replaced by the 

 telegraph and telephone; and the ox team has given way to the steam 

 plow. 



Seed Selection. 



"The dry land farmer of today has all the appliances and con- 

 trivances of modern science and invention at his command, and on the 

 cheap lands of the West, with careful seed selection and proper culti- 

 vation, he can fearlessly enter into competition with the most favored 

 farmer on earth. As he develops his farm, the prospector and miner 

 will develop the mines, and the nearby coal camp or mining center will 

 afford him the best home market on earth. 



"Then we will educate the plants to be drought resisting and, as the 

 people settle up the country and build permanent homes, unheard of 

 methods of reclamation will be adopted. The knocker, who gleefully re- 

 calls the early failures in Kansas and Nebraska and prophesies disaster 

 is going to be fooled. The people will not starve out and move away, 

 for there is no place to go to. The free prairie lands to the East of us 

 have disappeared forever, and there 'Ain't nobody makin' no more land.' 



"Moreover, with the rapid increase in wealth and population, the 

 chances are that real estate will never be any cheaper. 



