And if at any time the local supply of corn falls short, it can be shipped in from the locality known as the "corn belt" at a rate several cents per hundred cheaper than Fort Collins, Greeley and other great feeding points can obtain, so that with unlimited quantities of alfalfa grown here, with oats in abundant supply, yielding as it does when properly handled, from 80 to 120 bushels per acre, with freight rates in our favor, and with the cattle market within twenty-four hours from the loading chute, this has become the greatest winter feedingsection in the country, thus affording a home market for two of the principal crops produced. Sugar factories to the west of us have caused much attention to he given to the beet crop. Receiving stations are located at frequent intervals on both railroads where the beets are weighed and loaded, the company paying the freight to the factory, and in this way the grower whose field is fortymiles from the factory receives the same

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

price per ton as does the farmer who delivers them in his wagon at the factory. This crop has been found very profitable. Mainfields have yielded from eighteen to twentysix tons per acre, the average yield from the entire acreage in the valley being about fifteen tons. From this it is easy to be seen that the owner of an irrigated farm in the North Platte valley will soon be rated among the most independent classes of our citizen's. From what has been said of the irrigated section, however, it must not be inferred that the farmers beyond or above the line of canals are not making good. It has been conclusively demonstrated in recent years that there are certain crops adapted to "dry land" farming, and which can be grown every year regardless of the scarcity of rainfall during that particular season.