14 
Bulletin 77. 
young stock in the spring to be sold in the fall. Others are tak¬ 
ing up the idea of producing forage on a large scale so that they 
can feed all stock whenever it is necessary. Still others count 
upon moving all cattle to where there is plenty of feed and hiring 
them wintered. It is noted that farmers on the Vernon divide 
now often take cattle to winter. But the greatest number of cat¬ 
tle will undoubtedly be raised by men who own bunches of from 
twenty-five to one hundred and care for them by the work of them¬ 
selves and their families. These people can make a living by 
milking a few cows when cattle are low in price, and then they 
can turn the milk more towards beef making when cattle are high. 
My travels on “the divide” south of Denver gave me some 
idea of the possibilities of the dairy business on the plains. Some 
of the settlers on the plains are now using hand separators and 
shipping their cream. This simplifies dairying and leaves the 
skim milk at home for the calves, and at the same time it mater¬ 
ially lessens the labor connected with dairying. 
Poultry. Some people have made quite a success in raising 
poultry. The sunshine of the plains, when combined with proper 
feed and care, makes the laying hen extremely popular. The pro¬ 
duction of winter eggs, combined with winter dairying, has proved 
extremely profitable on a small scale in a great many cases. One 
woman who kept accounts showed me a record of 100 hens for a 
year. The eggs had given a profit of one dollar per hen for the 
year, and she had raised 190 chicks besides. Another woman 
raises several hundred chicks every year, using incubators and 
brooders. She buys the eggs for hatching from her neighbors as 
she keeps no roosters. All young roosters are sold when they 
reach broiler size. The pullets are kept for the production of 
winter eggs. She raises mostly Leghorns. Of course, there have 
been many failures in the poultry business on the plains also— 
failures too numerous to record. Those who succeeded in the 
poultry were very careful hands, and they have made a thorough 
study of the business from the beginning. 
J O <75 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
Since beginning the investigations, the country has been con¬ 
stantly improving. The houses built of sod from sandy loam soil 
do not usually stand much more than fifteen years, while those 
made of adobe soil last indefinitely. However, the sod roofs soon 
become leaky and need frequent replacing. We find many sod 
roofs replaced by shingle roofs, and it is rare that the old sod house 
is replaced by a new sod house nowadays. In nearly all cases 
wooden houses have taken the place of the “soddies” when they be¬ 
came uninhabitable. When first traveling over the country in 
1900, we found very few who were intending to stay in the conn- 
