Top of page

Notice
Special holiday hours in effect, December 2025 through January 2026. More information.
Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper Deseret Farmer (Provo, Utah) 1904-1912

View All Front Pages

About Deseret Farmer (Provo, Utah) 1904-1912

In Utah’s parched deserts and craggy mountains, good crop land has always been hard to find. Still, early Utah settlers who believed that the barren land would “blossom as the rose” were determined to derive a living out of the unrelenting soil. By 1904, when the newspaper that later became the Utah Farmer debuted, some 400 farming communities dotted the state. And over the next 30 years, the number of farms increased nearly threefold, as industrious citizens adapted to the arid terrain of the Great Basin. Some farmers devoted thousands of acres to sugar beets, while others established cattle or sheep ranches, or poultry farms. Meanwhile, many of Utah’s farming families attempted to develop hardscrabble plots via dry farming, a technique requiring soil conservation and drought-resistant crops.

 One of the pioneers of the dry farming method was the scholar and scientist John Andreas Widtsoe, a native of Norway who had come to Utah as a boy in 1883 after his mother joined the Mormon Church. In 1891, Widstoe graduated from Brigham Young College in Logan. Three years later, he received high honors for his post-graduate work in chemistry at Harvard. Widstoe went on to teach at Logan’s Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) and later became president of the University of Utah, as well as a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles in the Mormon Church. Widstoe’s book, Dry Farming, A System of Agriculture for Countries Under Low Rainfall, published in 1911, remains one of the seminal works on dry farming.

In 1904, Widstoe and two colleagues at the Utah State Agricultural College founded the Deseret Farmer. Taking its title from the original name for the Utah Territory, the Provo weekly promised to bring important information to every agriculturalist in the state. “Controversies of a religious or political nature will find no place in our columns,” the publication promised. “This paper stands for education in, for and by agriculture…Our hopes are to have the Deseret Farmer in the home of every farmer, fruit-grower, stock-raiser, dairyman, instructing and enlightening each equally in his chosen vocation, and helping him to appreciate the beauty and worthiness of his calling.”

 In 1905, Widstoe moved to Provo to help establish the department of agriculture at Brigham Young University. He continued to manage the Deseret Farmer, and when he returned to Logan two years later, his paper absorbed the Rocky Mountain Farmer, a rival publication that had sprung up in Widstoe’s absence. Shortly thereafter, the Deseret Farmer moved its operations to Salt Lake City and became the official organ of various agricultural and dairy associations. In 1922, it became the Utah Farmer, a name later changed to the Utah Farmer-Stockman  , which continued to publish until the 1990s.

Provided By: University of Utah, Marriott Library

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Deseret Farmer (Provo, Utah) 1904-1912

Names

  • Utah State University. Cooperative Extension Service.

Dates of Publication

  • 1904-1912

Created / Published

  • Provo, Utah : Deseret Farmer Pub. Co., 1904-1912.

Headings

  • -  Agriculture--Utah
  • -  Farmers--Utah
  • -  Farm management--Utah
  • -  Farm produce--Utah
  • -  Farmers' spouses--Utah
  • -  Provo (Utah)--Newspapers
  • -  Agriculture
  • -  Farm management
  • -  Farm produce
  • -  Farmers
  • -  Farmers' spouses
  • -  Utah
  • -  Utah--Provo
  • -  United States--Utah--Provo

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (July 14, 1904) - v.7, no. 38 (June 8, 1912).
  • -  Place of publication varies.
  • -  Numbering irregular: Vol. 8, no. 14-18 repeated; v. 8, no. 22-38 called v. 7, no. 22-38.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  "Official organ Agricultural College Extension Department."
  • -  Annual subject indexes.
  • -  Merged with: Rocky Mountian farming, to form: Utah farmer.
  • -  Rocky Mountain Farming (OCoLC)24856329
  • -  Utah farmer (OCoLC)367536043

Medium

  • volumes : illustrations ; 33-35 cm

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper
  • S561.6.U8 D47

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2010218520

OCLC Number

  • 24942058

ISSN Number

  • 2163-6745

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://aj.sunback.homes/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://aj.sunback.homes/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Deseret Farmer Provo, Utah -1912. (Provo, UT), Jan. 1 1904. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/2010218520/.

APA citation style:

(1904, January 1) Deseret Farmer Provo, Utah -1912. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/2010218520/.

MLA citation style:

Deseret Farmer Provo, Utah -1912. (Provo, UT) 1 Jan. 1904. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/2010218520/.