19/34 But here, as in all new wheat countries, the productive power of the soil soon began to decrease. Little by little the number of bushels per acre lessened, until the bonanza farmer found himself with not half the product to sell which he had owned the first few years of his operations. In one California town at one time a bonanza farmer came in and covered three city blocks with farm machinery which he had turned over to the bank owning the mortgages on his lands and plant. He turned in also all his mules and horses, and retired worse than broke from an industry in which he had once made his hundreds of thousands. Something of this same story was to follow in the Dakotas. |