"There are a few things I wanted to say. One is, TAKE CARE OF YOUR GRAIN; for it is of more worth to you than gold and silver. I know you will see harder times before another harvest than you have seen this season. There is enough, and we need never want bread, but if we do not take the right course we are sure to see sorrow, and THE GREATEST YOU HAVE EVER SEEN."
Mark the stress laid upon the subject of storing up grain for a day of famine. This theme forms almost the staple of President Kimball's sermons for the next three years. With the eye of faith he saw the famine afar off, and strove with all the power of his earnest and prophetic nature to impress this fact upon the minds of his hearers, that they might be prepared for the gaunt spectre's coming. But they heeded him not, to any general extent, and in due time suffered the consequences of their neglect.
A year later he touched on the subject of home manufactures:
"Will the time ever be that we can make our clothing? We nearly can at this time. I would like to see the people take a course to make their own clothing, make their own machinery, their own knives and their own forks, and everything else we need, for the day will come when we will be under the necessity of doing it, for trouble and perplexity, war and famine, bloodshed and fire, and thunder and lightning will roll upon the nations of the earth, insomuch that we cannot get to them, nor they to us."
The next is a retrospective glimpse:
"I was one of the first, in connection with President Young, who came to this valley when it was a desolate region, and we could not even get a chart from Fremont nor from any other man, from which to learn the course to this place. I was one who helped to pick out the road. When we got to the upper ferry of Platte River, half of our company had not a mouthful of bread. I recollect one day, I believe it was on the Platte, Brother Brigham said to me, 'Brother Heber, what do you think about it, do you think we shall go any further?' I knew he asked this question to try me. I replied, I wanted to go the whole journey and find some white sandstone and see what there was in the earth. There never was a day when I would not go with him until we found a location. I knew there was a place somewhere, though at times the prospect appeared dreary. But here it was on high. It is the best country I ever saw."
By this time the approach of the famine was beginning to be felt. In the course of some remarks at a special conference in Provo, July 13th, 1855, President Kimball said:
"Perhaps many feel a little sober because our bread is cut off, but I am glad of it, because it will be a warning to us, and teach us to lay it up in future, as we have been told. How many times have you been told to store up your wheat against the hard times that are coming upon the nations of the earth? When we first came into these valleys our President told us to lay up stores of all kinds of grain that the earth might rest once in seven years. The earth is determined to rest, and it is right that it should. It only requires a few grasshoppers to make the earth rest, they can soon clear it. This is the seventh year; did you ever think of it?"
Then came the famine, the second one in the history of the Saints, in fulfillment of the warning words of their prophets and seers. It was the famine of 1856.