The Second Farm
“The wheat and oats were unusually good and the yield was abundant. There are thirty acres of fine potatoes. The large flocks of turkeys and chickens are thriving. The number of eggs gathered have kept the hospital well supplied throughout the summer.”
“The school garden crop exceeds, in quantity of production, any on record. The farms also have yielded abundantly, making this a record-breaking year for Carlisle in the fruition of agricultural products.”
The Indian fairs, now so popular on many reservations, will play no small part in solving the Indian problem. It does not matter which one of the Commissioners inaugurated this most excellent incentive to work and progress. Whoever was responsible for it, hit upon a most happy expedient. Manifestly, the Indians should be encouraged to continue these fairs and to engage in honest competition. Everyone will heartily approve of the scheme to abandon, or curtail, the “Wild West” feature—of which we have had entirely too much the past thirty years.
A few years ago, Indian farms, formerly under cultivation, had grown up to bushes in Minnesota and Oklahoma. If the plans of the Indian Office, as outlined above, are carried to a successful termination, most of these tracts will again come under cultivation. The Indian will feel encouraged to labor, especially so since the fruits of his toil will accrue to him rather than to the white man. The reimbursable appropriations and the encouragement of industry are two of the most hopeful signs of Indian progress.
CHAPTER XXXIV. FOUR IMPORTANT BOOKS
As I write this page there lie before me four important Indian books, and I would that every reader possessed them in his library, for the very good reason that all of them treat of the Indian of today. Two of them are strictly historical, and the other two sufficiently accurate to be included in that category.