Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1882-05-18
IRRIGATION.

Mr.. Pren,is, published in the Alch'son
Champion on the irrigation schemes al
Garden City, will be read with interest:
At The State Fair at Topeka last fall
enormous onions and other vegetables were
exhibited by the A., T. & 5. +. people as
raised by irrigation at Garden City. Sequo-
yah county. As the place wss approached
the stories OF the success of the enterprise
varied. Mos, were to the effect that few
onions was about all the landscape afforded,
and determination, once formed, 10 viii
the place, was abandoned. But a, i've
o'clock this morning, a. the brakeman call
ed ''Gsrden City," this determination was
revoked, and q very pleasant and instructive
day has been passed in consequence.
The country around Garden City is very
large. The world never looked larger than
from the depot platform this morning. A
vast plain M fat a. floor, stretched away
to the east, the west, the north. On the
south flowed the bankless. treeless Arkansas,
reminding one OF a human eye without
lashes: beyond the river was The line of yell
low sand hills. Ii was very still when the
train, with iis rush and roar, had come and
gone. A camp fire glcwed of toward the
river, and a group of white covered wagons
stood near. The sun rose saddsnly, - If II
came up over the eige OF the world at the
horizon. The little town OF Garden City,
& =. A
sod able-, farm wagons and agricultural
implements which make up new settlement
in X anssa, had not yet got up TO breakfast.
Four men, with csrpe. bags, came out OF the
east somewhere and walked literally mp the
track 10 the westward. They were going up
thousands of fee, more into the fastnesses OF
the Rocky Mountains. The place was one
of the steps Of the mountains; this seeming
pisin ia really a slope OF 5000 feet above the
level OF the sea. The only genuine moan
tain ever climbed was hardly M high.
Never have been 20 impressed with the
yas,ness of this western land. i, WAS al
most oppressive.
IN
rode over the lands where the FIRST ditch was
opened, and the ground broken. IL looked
ike shst it il, a great, newly m :de garden.
Il was laid out in beds OF large size, each
with q foot high ridge around it, like the
bottom crus, of pie These are the dykes
through which the water Is let on the beds.
Running the length Of the fields parallel
with the river was ditch with swift running
water, one or two feet deep; the water ran
like mill race, and did not creep "a in a
canal. Tben III re were lateral bitches
crossing the fields, ridge on each eide pre-
yen,in, overflow. Men we're at work water
ing this bed or that, breaking hole in the
Low dyke with a spade, and then the water
crep. slowly widening, over the face OF the
Garth. Some beds were black with recen,
watering. walked about over the iittie
helds. The earth was soft like sshes; there
u moi a stone as big as baby's foot for
miles and miles. All SORTS Of vegetables
had he-n planted; some grain was growing,
and there was a field Of the curious dsrk
green alfalfa, which sends its roots to water,
+x. eight or ten feet, snd can be Gu, four or
tive times season.
Everybody WAS enthusiastic. man from
Greeley, an irrigation experiment, said that
c,lory was the richest agricultural commun-
nv in the world, and that this was better
location. patch Of oulons about h'g
.uough tor An ordinary door yard was said
-, .;.il.A SSaO worth Of onions LAT