184 



THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



on the dry farm, the dry land problem. He has called to his aid the 

 scientists near and far, and now gradually with firmer and safer step is 

 again traveling westward, conquering the desert as he comes. In our 

 northern country a few push away out on the frontier, but the mass sit 

 themselves down beside their neighbor, the settler of yesterday. 



Frontier Changing. 



"It was not many years ago that Devil's Lake in Northern Dakota, 200 

 miles from the Montana line, was considered the extreme western limit 

 of possible agriculture. A few years later found the farmer at Minot, 

 which has become a thriving city. Then as the years passed, we find 

 Williston, the center of an agriculture country, with the lands farmed 

 for miles around. Three years ago Montana looked an impossibility to 

 the border farmer, but the next year found every quarter section of 

 tillable land gone for 40 miles from the northern Montana, Dakota line. 

 Culbertson became a thriving town and then it was on to Glasgow. 



"This story has and is being repeated along the line of the Northern 

 Pacific and also along the western line of the Milwaukee. At the present 

 rate of coming, in five to eight years the new settler will have swept 

 the state. 



"To that extent this experience is being repeated in the states to 

 the south, I do not know, but reports indicate that peoiple have moved and 

 are gradually moving westward over Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and 

 Wyoming. They are also pushing south into Texas, New Mexico and 

 other states. 



Dry Land Homesteads. 



"The great majority of these people are taking hold of the dry lands 

 because these are cheap, but the irrigated land is not forgotten and the 

 increased number of people looking iot homes on the land, or from a 

 living from the land, is going to make it comparatively easy to settle 

 the irrigated areas as soon as these are put upon the market. 



"But as I stated, the great mass of these people are pushing out over 

 the dry land. Is this a repetition of the western movement of 20 years 

 ago, though more general in its scope, and are the experiences following 

 that movement in any danger of re-appearing? This thought to me car- 

 ries a weight of knowledge and energy at command to be given to work- 

 ing out the problems of dry farm agriculture, and carrying the informa- 

 tion gained to the home of every settler. I believe we should know more 

 about the possibilities and limitations of the various sections of our states, 

 so that we may be able to advise intelligently as to the districts, and 

 what conditions of soil and climate promise success, and what localities 

 it would be well to pass by till our growth in knowledge and experience 

 determine whether extensions to the less favored fields is desirable. 



"We must all recognize that all of this Avestern country is not alike. 

 It varies much from east to west and from north to south; it varies with 

 mountain and valley and plain and these varying sections each presents 

 its problems. 



