THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



13 



"You, sir, from Australia, may feel certain that you may shortly be 

 reclaiming the vast acreage of the interior of your continent. Your task 

 is made doubly easy by an ambitious, hardy, intelligent populace; and 

 easier still by having a Wyoming man, Professor Elwood Mead, to lead 

 and teach them the art of irrigation, which is another great factor in. 

 development. Yiou, sir, representing the Crescent, will have the distinc- 

 tion of reclaiming the seats of ancient civilizations on both sides of the 

 Mediterranean Sea; and more, you have it if you can reach them, to 

 make our Mohammmedan fellow mortals cease their religious wars and 

 quarrels, and direct their energies toward warring on the soil and con- 

 quering it to a good purpose, 



"Of all the regions that require a cause to give quarrel in which 

 the different races comprising the population have a purpose in com- 

 mon,, it is South Africa. When the Englishman, Scotchman, Irl.shm'an 

 and Boer see fit to formulate a plan to subdue their plains and vast 

 stretches of unbroken land, and by this great science, convert tlie 

 hitherto desert into a garden ; it will be a much better way to spend 

 energies than they found in the practice of war and devastation. To 

 you of Russia; you will return home with the possibilities of what may 

 be done by this science to make lands of your territories productive. 

 You can look along your steppes and across the plains of Turkestan; 

 through Barkara and Khiva even to the foot hills of the mountains 

 of Afghanistan. You can see away East past the confines of Persia 

 to the north of China and all through Siberia, millions of acres that 

 will surrender the wealth of produce through knowledge of this art 

 that this invention aims to properly classify. 



"And now a word from Cheyenne. Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, 

 that grand trio of military geniuses, when they established Fort Rus- 

 sell forty-three years ago, gave proof of the value of Cheyenne's ad- 

 vantage as a wholesaling and distributing station. Until the final set- 

 tling of the Indian question, Fort Russell — Camp Carlin — was the great 

 entrepot upon which all the armies in the field depended for their sup- 

 plies of food, clothing, transportation, equipage a.nd munitions, of every 

 sort, as well as re-inforcements of men to fill the oft depleted ranks. 

 Today, the military powers that be, hold this point as the greatest 

 inland military strategic point in the United States, and near by, at Crow 

 Creek Reserve, is the largest practical military school of the nation, 

 where thousands of soldiers, militia and regular, assemble annually 

 for military maneuvers. 



"Cheyenne, to which we bid you welcome, is the best city on 

 earth today. It is located near the top of the continent and is the 

 exact geographical center of the United States. It Is on the main lines 

 of two transcontinental railways, one running east and west, the other 

 north and south No inland city possesses better transportation facil- 

 ities. It has a magnificent water system in course of construction at a 

 cost of one and a quarter million dollars, and the sewerage system scheme 

 which, when completed, will reduce contagious diseases to a minimum. 



