232 



THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



up and still she talked. He turned to her and said sleepily: 'Darling, are 

 you talking again or yet?' 



"I suppose that t am rather an unnatural girl, but farming has al- 

 ways been extremely interesting to me. My first experience as a farmer 

 was raising cabbages that I might attend the university; later I was my 

 father's field boss as he runs a canning factory. Although I was given 

 full sway, I yearned for some land of my own. 



"A year ago last fall my sister and I filed on two adjoining quarters 

 as desert claims. The first part of April I heard that my clatm was to be 

 contested as not being desert land, as hay had been cut on it. You may 

 talk about the excitement of land rushes— I had a land rush of my own. 

 A neighbor brought me word that two parties were going to file their 

 contests the next day. In order to be sure of getting there first, I took 

 a four o'clock morning train into Denver. But I was there ahead, right 

 in the doorway of the office when it opened, and changed my entry to a 

 homestead filing: It has been a pleasure to me ever since, and a bottom- 

 less pit for the study of human nature. I will first tell you what I have 

 done with it and what I expect to do this spring. 



"My si'ster and I decided to build a double house on the dividing line 

 so my brother and I took a surveyor out to run the lines: We found the 

 section stone and run our line north and south and located the center of 

 the section, but did not run our line east and west which separated us 

 from our neighbor on the south, because the surveyor came down with 

 the measles. We were out two days. We stayed with my neighbor, an 

 oM man whom everyone calls Uncle Charlie. Ojwi'ng to the dry weather 

 everything was looking unpromising, even for the farmers whose land 

 was under the ditches. That night after supper while we were sitting 

 around the table, to make conversation I asked Uncle Charlie If he 

 thought it was going to rain, as it seemed rather cloudy. He took out 

 his Piper Heidsig, dented his thumb nail into his tobacco several times, 

 and replied: 'Wal, Daisy, I believe it rs, you know my terbaccer always 

 gets soft just before a shower.' It did not rain. I have never made in- 

 quiries as to whether this is a reliable barometer or not. 



Soil Preparation. 



"The ground was too dry to plough, so I did nothing more material 

 than to dream of the big crops the first month. Near the first of May, 

 while I was in Ft. Collins, as I am a 'skule-ma'arm* also, a heavy snow 

 fell. I decided then to farm. I hurried to my home at Lupton and put 

 seven three-horse plows to work. Everybody thought that my sister and 

 I were crazy on the subject of dry farming. All our friends tried to dis- 

 courage us, by assuring us that we would get so deeply in debt that 

 nothing could save us. Of course you never knew of a schoc(L teacher 

 that saved money. So we borrowed. My father had always been strongly 

 against dry farming, and did not offer us much encouragement. 



"The first day was exciting. I drove over in a wagon with a man 

 whom I had hired to put in a well, for we decided that it way economy 



