The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1870-11-03
The Great American Desert.

The Chicago Tribune has an interest |
ing article on the new West, from which |
we quote as follows:
1t may seem to be rather absurd as
sertion that discovery has recently
been made in valuable lands on the
North American Continent, within easy
access of the most densely populated
portion of the country, of more worth
than all the gold and silver mines that
have been prospected for the last twenty
years. OF land, it was thought we had
enough, and that we knew Just where it
was but, in our calculation, we counted
in that immense region still laid down
in the school books as The Great Ameri-
can Desert, and counted it as barren
and wasteless waste. The discovery is
that there is no such place as The Great
American Desert, or rather that the
place laid down as such, extending from
Western Kansas to the foot of the Rocky
Mountains-a belt of country not less
than two hundred miles in width, and
pierced by the Kansas Pacific Railway
length of four hundred miles-is not
desert at all, but region covered with
a native growth of grass of the most nu-
tritious quality, and peculiarly calcula-
ted by climate and position as the natu-
raj range for stock-grazing and raising
from which the present and future mil
lions of people of the United States are
to be supplied with beef and mutton,
with hides, and wool, and horses.
Undoubtedly much of this region will
eventually be opened to agriculture, but
before that time comes the problem of
irrigation must be solved by sinking nu-
merous artesian wells, bringing hidden
streams to the surface, and turning the
waters of the rivers from their natural
channels to percolate in canals and riv-
ulets over the arid soil of the plains.
That time, however, is far distant, if it
ever comes, for the many hundreds of
miles of high and rolling prairie which
makes the divides between the rivers.
The problem, indeed, is solved already
for those sections of country bordering
the rivers where irrigation has revealed
the fact that the soil only needs sufh-
cheney of water to render it the most
fertile and the most certainly produc-
tive of crops of any land upon the con-
tinent. But when all this land shall be
redeemed, and an agricultural popula-
ton shall have covered all the region so
easily rendered fertile by irrigation,
there will still remain an immense
stretch of country, hundreds Of miles in
extent, high, dry, and salubrious, and
rich in its own peculiar way, on which
the agriculturist will not encroach, but
where the herdsman will gather tens of
thousands ofcattle and of sheep,for whose
sustenance nature has made the amplest
provision, and which may be multiplied
in numbers sufficient almost to feed the
world. 1t only needs that man shall
provide for water by wells and reser-
voirs, or keeping near enough to the
living streams, and nature has done the
rest.
"All flesh is grass" in another sense
than the Scriptural, and the plains are
supplied with natural herbage for
stock, which needs no other moisture
during the long dry season than that
which fell from the clouds in the early
: spring and started it in its growth. 1t
natures its short blade and seeds and is
cured into hay upon the ground in the
steady summer heat, and so preserves its
sweetness and nutrition all winter long
that animals feeding upon it are fatter
in the spring than in the fall. Domes-
this, and in the long range from north
to south, herds may be driven the year
round from ranch to ranch, and never
fail of finding an inexhaustible supply
But, by careful selection of localities
even this may be avoided, and the range
confined within few miles. On these
fields millions of buffalo and antelope
/ have roamed and fattenv11 from time
immemorial, and that alone is evidence
enough of the peculiar fitness of thi
Q region for the raising of domestic ami
= mails, even had the experiment not beer
successfully tested by putting upor
1 them herds of Texan cattle, which thrive
n and fatten and improve there bette
than on the different grass of the NOR
:, southern plains. To sum up, then-thi
: wide extent of country, which, till re
: Gently, has been held to be desert ut
: terly unfit for any human use, is, il
reality, in its high and rolling surface
g the salubrity of its climate, the fooC
e with which it is covered all the yea
g round, and in the very difficulty OF de
: voting it for want of rain to agriculture
e peculiarly adapted to the raising of do
d mestic animals, and to become the grea
d source of supply of animal food for tn
n people of the whole country. To stocl
it, we have the cattle of Texas and Ney
: Mexico, which only need to be crosse
with our own breeds to secure the bes
7 qualities of both.
Through the centre of this regioI
d hitherto supposed desert, runs for fou
$, hundred and fifty miles the Kansas Pa
+ cific Railway, and it is the opening {
e that road that will render the raising {
y cattle in Western Kansas and Colorad
so profitable and important to Easter
), markets. The business of that road o
!. its eastern sections shows how immenS
" the trade in cattle is, and how depend
rs ent the whole country is upon this SUI
E. ply from the West and Southwest.
l. From May to October of the pre-
IS ent year. the number of head of catt
y brought eastward over the Kansas Pa
cific Road was 75,60S, and in SeptembC
alone the number was 1865. The il
ID crease is very rapid, being about 5000
r head more than the figures show for I'll
ID corresponding months last year, and IL
le demand seems limited only by the CT
ul pacity of a new road. As that capacii
u increases, the demand increases,