HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

to see the home of our choice, the most prosperous part of the grandest state in the union.

We know whereof we speak and are still in the business and have no desire to change our occupation. The cow has been and is the Queen of Nebraska. Raise good stock and you are sure of good results. It costs less to produce good stock than scrubs and oh what a difference in the outcome.

Horses are raised in great numbers here and the small western horse is rapidly being displaced or rather replaced by standard breeds of English and French draft and roadster class. Dawes county has furnished several hundreds of horses for the European war zone in the last six months.

We have had ample chance to observe the outcome of attempts at ranching and farming in Dawes county and will say, fearless of successful contradiction, that every man who has made a persistent effort has had his labors crowned with success. And we look forward to the time, in the near future, when Dawes county shall be the leader of the state in the production, not only of stock, but also of grain and other products that are simply awaiting brain and brawn for their development. It is true that the time of saddle farming is past but the time of real farming is in its embryotic state in Dawes county.

Dawes county, the only county in the western half of the state without a sandhill, has more running creeks, more timber, more irrigated acres of alfalfa and excepting Cherry, more miles of railroad than any of the twentyfive western counties in Nebraska. Dawes county has two rivers and over twenty-six creeks winding through fertile valleys verdant with fields of alfalfa, wheat, oats and corn.