30 BULLETIN 89. 
which was necessary in wheat raising alone, to 365 clays which is 
necessary under the mixed farming of the present day. Some 
men have lost all the property they brought to the country, but 
others who came with practically nothing are quite well-to-do 
now. The banker at Wray, who is an old settler himself and is 
personally acquainted with almost ever}* man on the Vernon 
divide, especially from a financial standpoint, told me that a large 
majority of the settlers there are better off, financially, than they 
were when thev came there. The good dwellings and barns seen 
there seem to prove the statement. 
Magnitude of the IVheat-growing Industry on the Flams . 
At Cheyenne Wells, no means of threshing grain is available ex¬ 
cept a little tread-power machine. At Burlington, very little 
threshing is done because no threshing machine is near enough 
to afford to come there for the work it can get. The wheat there 
is used for feed, usually for hay. At Yale, several stone rollers 
are in use at times when a crop of grain is raised. At Seibert, 
there is a small horse-power thresher which usually operates near 
Tuttle, Kirk and Cope. At Thurman is another small horse¬ 
power which threshes a few jobs each season. At Akron I saw 
no threshing machine. The flail is the only weapon in use there 
at present. But on the Vernon and Idalia divides, nine threshing 
outfits are in operation nearly every year. Some of these are 
large steam-threshers which carry hands enough to do all the 
work so as to deliver the grain to the owner’s wagons. Often the 
machines are all busy from the middle of August until far into 
December. Of course the machinery in use for threshing indi¬ 
cates the relative production of grain. There are three grain 
buyers at Wray, and besides what these men buy, much goes to 
Haigler, Nebraska, St. Francis, Kansas, and Burlington, Colorado. 
There is a good flouring mill at Wray and another at Burlington. 
Next to stock raising under the range system, wheat growing 
requires fewer days work in the year than any other farming busi¬ 
ness, so wherever wheat can be successfully grown, farming may 
gain a foothold. Where it fails habitually, the stock must 
occupy the country. 
