Livestock

   Perhaps nowhere does one find more ideal conditions for the raising of livestock than in this region. The clay hills rising from each side of the Platte Valley at this point provide the very best of pastures for cattle and horses, while the valley itself produces the grains and alfalfa to convert them into market-toppers when they leave the feed lots. Cattle, hogs, corn and alfalfa, along with the brains of men, have been the mortgage lifters and irrigation project builders of this wonderful section of our state.

   Dairy cattle are also numerous and have added their part to Dawson County's excellent reputation as a leading producer of livestock. One finds many large herds of Hereford and Shorthorn cows whose offspring fill the feed lots during the winter season and convert the farmers' corn and alfalfa into cash, and haul his entire crop to town at one trip. During the past year the cities of Gothenburg and Cozad shipped 461 cars of cattle, 499 cars of hogs, and 36 cars of horses to leading markets. We are located within almost equal distance of the three leading live stock markets, Omaha, Kansas City and Denver, having most excellent shipping facilities to either one.

   It has been proven through years of operating under Dawson County's older irrigation projects, that one thorough irrigating of the land will always produce a bumper crop of small grain. Winter wheat is sown extensively -- the ground being thoroughly watered early in the fall and the seed sown shortly thereafter. Such a method makes irrigation costs very reasonable, as the land can be listed and easily and cheaply flooded and filled with sufficient moisture to guarantee a big yield. The quality of the wheat is evidenced by the most excellent flour manufactured by the county's several large flour mills. Oats and barley also do very well in this section of the state.

   Irrigation has also made possible the growing of Sugar Beets and Potatoes quite extensively.

   Nowhere in the state and perhaps nowhere in all America is water obtained at so cheap a cost from irrigation canals as in Dawson County, and nowhere can land be found more ideally sloped and situated for running the water on it. Providence provided this magnificent valley, with its splendid soil of great depth and its great river, and also provided man's brain -- these three have combined and, in so doing, there has resulted a veritable paradise, the Land of Production, that section of the country lying tributary to the cities of Gothenburg and Cozad in Nebraska.