The Arizona sentinel., 1878-07-20
OUR DESERT COUNTRY.
Its Products.

lcO, small portions of It extending into this Territory. An erroneous idea prevails that it is all a deSO- late waste unfit for mans Occu- pancy. But hundreds of thou sands of acres Of the Colorado and Sonora Desert lie along the banks of navigable river, or are suS- ceptible Of irrigation from its wa terS, and are fitted by climate and soil to support as dense a popula- tion as any part of the United States, and to add immensely to the Nations revenues. Though the bulk of this rich tract lies out side of Arizona, yet we shall reap many benefits from development of its resources Its climate is objected to by these who only con- sider indications of the therno- meter. Heat is necessary to crops of sugar, hemp, cotton, coffee, rice, opium, and products denied by Nature to colder climates, in which the farmer is lucky to make d profit of SI5 or S20 per acre. Prof. it's from the crops named run up into hundreds of dollars per acre. That these crops are profitable has been amply proven by their suc- cess, for the past 5O to 150 years, in parts of the desert extending down into Sonora. Irrigation is, of course, required; but the Col orado river supplies water enough to irrigate province. Sugar Is staple product of points along the Gulf of COrtez; and the cane has thriven finely near Yuma, for the three or four years since it was first tried. Cotton W;tS raised for hundreds of years by the IndianS and by them woven into cloths, until they found it cheaper and quicker to trade wheat or labor for  the products of Yankee looms. Hemp grows wild over enormous tracts along the Colorado river, to an average height of twelve to fifteen feet. Isolated plants have been cut that were twenty-five feet high and as thick as mans wrist. Quantities of fibre have been prepared from it and shipped to San Francisco cOrdage factories, where it was pronounced a supe- rior article. The coffee of Liberia, unlike that of Costa Rica, thrives on irrigated ground, or even Tn SWamDS CT along the Sea-shore. Parties familiar with our neigh boring desert, and with this coffee, declare the soil and climate just suited to its cultivation under ir- rigation. It has a leathery leaf which insects do notmolest. When not injured by rain (rainfall is very light on the deserD its berry sells for four cents per pound more than Mocha; plants three years old pro- duce 700 to 1000 pounds per acre. Lands along the Colorado, Over- flowed by its waters driven back by the tides, fully equal those of South Carolina for producing low- land rice; the higher, irrigaLle lands are unsurpassed for prOduc- ing the upland or Chinese varie- ties. The success of raising opi- um, chinchona (quinine), pepper and spices, tea, etc., is predicated upon the success attained on just such tracts of country reclaimed by irrigation in India.
 Dates grow in parts of Africa and Asia as arid as this, and in such seem to thrive best. The black dates of San Ygnacio, in Lower California, have long been famous for size and flavor. In that part of our desert they seem to like a somewhat alkaline soil but sandy. Near Mulege is a salt estero bcrdered by date trees, x1y h .b ,,r,,.,, n, OTTO 1,tv,,ri., " hon