This process of thus reducing- the acreage and multiplying the yield has shown that there is an idle acreage oh which thousands of farmers could soon gain independence under the half-dozen canals in this county, all completed and in yearly operation. It is safe to say that there are 60,- 000 acres under these completed enterprises which lie idly basking under the three hundred sunshiny days in the year, which if tickled with the cultivator would smile back with bursting granaries.

In location, this irrigated section of .Morrill county has advantages nowhere excelled, and in a very few instances equaled on the eastern slope of the Rockies. There is not a cereal common to the latitude that has not been produced here to the maximum yield. Its soil is rich and deep and so easily cultivable that most crops can be successfully grown on the new breaking. The arid region is acknowledged to be the home of alfalfa and it has been demonstrated that the yield of potatoes and sugar beets is as great per acre as has ever been grown in localities where those products have become noted. Since the canals mentioned were constructed, the idle and unbroken acreage sub-irrigated from them has produced the finest natural hay, and where water has been turned upon the unbroken prairie, a natural growth of what is called wheat grass springs up which makes the finest wild hay that is to be found upon the western market. While the elevation naturally shortens the seasons, and because also our summer nights are invariably cool, corn is not the principal crop; vet in the valley under irrigation, and on the table above the canals, corn is grown and makes a paying crop. With both the U. P. and Burlington roads running here and with direct lines to South Omaha, our feedingfacilities are unexcelled.