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About Will Maupin's weekly. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1911-1912 | View Entire Issue (June 9, 1911)
wonderful development, has been wrought in less than fifty years. Civil ization's histoiy records nothing like it. Seventy-seven thousand square miles of territory, 415 miles east and west and 205 miles north .and south. Forty-nine million acres, eighteen million acres cul tivated. Upon these eighteen million cul tivated acres Nebraska in 1910 raised upwards of $400,000,000 worth of grains and grasses. Of the thirty million uncul tivated acres more than one-half are just as good for corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley, alfalfa, potatoes, broom corn, etc., as the eighteen million cultivated acres, and one-half of the remaining acreage will in time, under intelligent cultivation and proper knowledge of the conditions to be met, be added to the wealth producing area. It took Nebraskans more than a quarter of a century to learn that they could not adapt Nebraska soil to the Ne braska man. Then came the most won derful discovery of the age- the discov ery that by adapting the man to the soil, Nebraska could be made the greatest ag ricultural wealth producer in the world. Since that discovery every year has seen hundreds of thousands of acres of soil, heretofore considered worthless, brought into cultivation and yielding returns that are so astonishing that it is hard to make people believe the truth. There is room in Nebraska for a half million more till ers of the soil who will till intelligently. Landseer, when asked what he mixed his paints with, replied, "With brains !" And there is no better fertilizer than brains. Nebraska is the third largest corn pro ducing state, and the youngest of the three, raising more corn to the acre than a ii3r other state. Nebraska is the fourth largest wheat producing state, and the youngest of the three, raising more wheat to the acre than any other state. Nebraska is the fourth largest pro ducer of oats, and the youngest of the four, only one state excelling her in pro duction per acre. Nebraska is the third largest producer of sugar beets. Nebraska manufactures more butter per capita than any other state, and her dairy industry is in its infancy. Nor is Nebraska alone an agricultural and live stock state. Twenty-five years ago we shipped in practically every man ufactured article we consumed. Last year our total manufactured products were approximately worth $250,000,000, or almost one-half as much as our total of agricultural products and live stock. Startling as it may sound, there is no state making such rapid strides in manu facturing lines as Nebraska. There is a reason. A dollar invested in Nebraska -.manufacturing establishments brings a greater return than a dollar invested in any other state. , - lint, as I said early in this paper, the liuinan mind cannot think in terms of millions. If I say that in 1910 Nebraska produced 36,000,000 pounds of butter we merely smile and say, "that's some but ter." Hut you'll probably sit up and take notice when I tell you that if all that but- . ter were packed in pound cartons, and the cartons stacked up end on end, it ; would make a column of butter two and one-half inches square and 285 miles high ; or if loaded into standard freight cars it Avould make a train over thirty miles long ! In 1910 Nebraska hens produced 102, 000,000 dozen eggs one billion, two hun dred million eggs. Placed end to end they would reach once and a half , times around the world, and they were worth more money than all the gold and silver dug out of any one state in this Union during the same year. Imagine, if you'": can, all those eggs rolled into one big egg, and then imagine a hen big enough to be the author thereof. With one scratch of her foot she could excavate enough dirt to make a basement for a City National Bank building, and throw the dirt across the Missouri river. Ever hear of "King Cotton?" Texas is the greatest cotton producing state, yet her 1910 crop of cotton was not worth as much as" Nebraska's corn and wheat crop by $30,000,000. The total tobacco produc tion of the Nation last year wasn't worth as much as last year's crop of Nebraska corn, and it wasn't our best corn year, either. Pennsylvania is the greatest coal . producing state, but her coal output last year was not worth as much at the mine mouth as the grain, hay and live stock of Nebraska on the farmsteads. All the gold dug from Uncle Sam's soil in 1910. wouldn't pay for Nebraska corn and wheat in 1910. And mind you, this with less than one-half her fertile soil under cultivation, and that less than half not yet intensively farmed so as to produce the maximum results. " Let us load upon freight cars all the grain, grasses, live stock, butter, eggs, , poultry, potatoes and . sugar beets pro duced in Nebraska in 1910. Would they : make a train long enough to reach from Omaha to Sidney? Yes, and then some. From Omaha to Salt Lake? Yes, and a bit further. From Omaha to San Fran cisco? Yes, and a little further. Well, how long? In order to get a main line track long enough to hold that train it would be necessary to bridge the Atlantic ocean, the English channel and the Baltic sea. With the caboose of that train in . St. Petersburg, the conductor who carried orders to the engineer in the cab would have to walk and walk and walk until he reached an engine that projected out into the Pacific ocean fourteen hundred miles west of San Francisco, for that train would be ten thousand and four miles long. In 1910 Nebraska, with a population of less than a million and a half of people, produced more from her soil than Japan, with forty million people, produced and purchased from other nations. The per capita of agricultural wealth production of Nebraska in 1910 was greater than that of any other state. Her two main cereals, corn and wheat, were worth more than the nation's output of copper; her four main cereals, corn, wheat, oats and rye, were worth more than the nation's out put of iron ore; her butter, eggs and poul try were worth practically as muCh as the nation's output of crude petroleum; her hay output was worth more than Alaska's output of precious metals, and her baby crop worth more than the baby crop of all the other states combined. ; i . You think you know Nebraska! I doubt if there is an editor here who is familiar with the history, the productiv ity aikU the resources of his own county. Nebraska a desert ! What other state has as many miles of rivers -within' her bord ers? Nebraska has over 800. miles of Platte river wholly within her confines. And witli the Blue, the Nemahas, the Loups, Pine, Stinking Water, Republi can, Salt, and creeks too numerous to mention, she possesses an undeveloped water power that would rival Niagara. She ought to be manufacturing from Ne braska, grown raw material every finished product that humanity eats and wears, and pretty near everything that human ity uses, using Nebraska power and pay ing wages to Nebraska workers. I claim that Nebraska, with more to advertise than any other state, is the least known state at home or abroad of any state in the Union. Kansas spends $30, 000 a year in publicity and immigration work; Missouri spends $40,000 a year; Colorado spends $30,000 a year 5 Montana spends $15,000 a year ; Washington and Oregon spend $25,000 a year each; Cali fornia spends a quarter of a million and Nebraska doesn't spend a dollar. Any wonder thousands pass us by to invest in the higher priced and less productive lands of the northwest? Any wonder that Canada is getting some of Nebraska's best? Any wonder that the Nebrasan in New York who undertakes to tell some of the real facts about Nebraska is laughed at and set down as a chronic pre varicator? Time that we made Nebraska known to all the world ! High time that we ac quaint the world with the marvelous im provement that has been wrought within her borders in less than a generation ! High time that we let the world know. that right here in the heart Of the once "Great American Desert" we have builded in less than a generation a state that stands at the front in education, that stands at the front in wealth production per capita, that stands at the front in development -of manufacturing, that leads all othe;.' states in civic reforms and accomplishes them without revolution and wholly by thoughtful study and intelligent progress. But before we can adequately tell the world we must first know Nebraska. So this is the message I bring you, feliow newspaper men: Let us study Nebraska, study her history, her resources and her possibilities, to the end that we may be fitted to advertise our beloved state, to all the world for what she is the most pro ductive, progressive and pushing ; the most enterprising, energetic and enthusi