How much capital should a man have to take up an irrigated farm? It is extremely difficult to answer this question. Experience has shown that success depends about 75 per cent on the individual. The chief requisites for success may be stated as energy, business ability, judgment, capital and experience. Experience has been placed last for the reason that it has been shown repeatedly that experience in farming in humid regions is not a particularly valuable asset in irrigated farming.
It may, therefore, be said that the average man who takes up a Government irrigated farm of 40 acres should possess a capital of at least $2,500, and not less than $4,000 if he undertakes to subdue an 80-acre tract.
As we ride on the overland trains across the great desert stretches of the far West, our eyes are fed full of color. In the midst of the riot of rich tints, we turn eagerly to occasional green spots that relieve the blazing beauty of the landscape, and our glances linger there with a sense of rest. These green spots are desert farms—fresh oases where, under the spell of water, the soil is wakening from its centuries of slumber and yielding up its stored wealth. These desert farms make a strong, human appeal to the passing traveler. They tell an assuring story of man’s return to the soil and of rich returns from the soil—a story of well-being and content attained, in substantial, comfortable homes. In some such modest way as pictured on the preceding page the settler begins his conquest of the desert. The measure of his success and prosperity lies in his hands. The wealth is there ready to be harvested.
W. D. Moffat
Editor
Uncle Sam a Generous Giver
The American Government has given of its resources as no nation ever did before or ever can again. To thirteen Western States alone over a hundred million acres have been given. The peoples of the world have been called in and tendered homes. Now, out of an area within the United States of a billion and a half acres of public domain, we have left as public lands subject to disposal as homesteads and otherwise less than 280,000,000 acres, not one-half of which, it may safely be said, will ever prove to be cultivable. In one year the Department of the Interior issued over 60,000 patents to land—donations from the nation to the courageous pioneer. Any man who finds gold, silver, copper or other minerals on his grant has them for the asking—a prize for discovery.