THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



57 



amount as a fair average crop for 200,000 acres of our best bean land, 

 we have a yield of $4,500,000 Deducting $3 per acre as cost of harvest- 

 ing and marketing, we have $3,900,000 for the growers, enough to sup- 

 port 3,900 families, or 19,500 people counting an average of five to the 

 family and $1,000 cash to each family. 



Sugar Beets. 



" 'I will now figure on 300,000 acres in sugar beets. Beets can be 

 grown successfully here. In the sugar producing states of the North an 

 average yield of about twelve to fifteen tons to the acre is obtained 

 and an average sugar content of twelve to fifteen per cent. Beets grown 

 in the Valentine Valley last year showed a content ranging from sixteen 

 to eighteen per cent sugar. Such beets sold in Michigan at the fac- 

 tories the two years I was there at $6 to $7 per ton, while the price paid 

 for beets averaging between twelve to fifteen, was never lower than 

 $4 per ton. Taking $5 per ton as a fair average, and twelve tons per 

 acre as a fair average crop, we have $60 per acre. Allowing $10 per acre 

 as the cash expense, and we have $50 an acre as profit to the farmer 

 as pay for his labor. Three thousnd acres at this rate would net us 

 $15,000,000 or 15,000 families, or 75,000 people supported in comfort. 

 Counting ten tons of beet pulp to the acre and allowing a daily con- 

 sumption of fifty pounds per head, the waste would be sufficient to feed 

 300,000 head of cattle the year around. 



Wheat. 



" 'We will pass on to the 100,000 acres of wheat. Allowing an aver- 

 age of twenty bushels per acre, and $1 per bushel profit on it and we 

 have $2,000,000 and 10,000 more people provided for. Inasmuch as it 

 is highly probable that wheat can be made to follow the bean crop the 

 same season, 300,000 acres would thus be grown and three times as 

 many people provided for. 



Gardens and Fruits. 



" 'From the 50,000 acres in gardens and fruits as much may be 

 obtained as from any one of the other lines of agriculture touched upon 

 in this letter. To sum up, we find that 'we can produce an income of 

 $40,000,000 and support a population of 180,000 to 250,000 people in this 

 valley in ease and comfort. It is my candid opinion that these estimates 

 are conservative and that the actual results will in time far exceed the 

 estimates I have made.' 



Dry Farming a Success. 



"Everywhere in the section of west Texas and New Mexico where 

 the dry farming method has been applied it is a success, and the farmers 

 are coming in daily by the score, picking out their homes and settling 

 down, but there is room for millions more, and no doubt of the ability 

 of the land to support them. 'Dry farming' has solved the question of 

 what to do with the section marked out in the geographies as the Llano 

 Estacado — and which the school children are taught to consider as a 



