Delta chief., 1883-04-25
WHAT WILL GROW HERE?

WHAT WILL GROW HERE?
To this question there is but one answer to
make: Almost anything in the agricultural
line and in the way of fruits possibility
that all kinds can be successfully grown.
The first assertion has been practically
demonstrated. On one ranch was raised
corn, alfalfa, potatoes, turnips beets, carrots,
parsnips, cabbage, onions. tomatoes, beans,
squash, peas, cucumbcrs, lettuce, musk and
wntcrmelons, and radishes. The domestic
grasses all grow by irrigation-timothy, blue
top, clover Hungarian, millet, etc. Potatoes
weighing six and a half pounds We're raised
the North Fork, and green corn and mel
ons were furnished TO the Gunnison market.
Last year Odessa wheat yielded over 80 bush
els to the acre, oats from 80 To 30 bushels, and
potatoes from 200 to 400 bushels. 1t can be
safely asserted that all the cereals and vege-
tables suited to a temperate zone may be
raised. 1t may be that here, as in the valleys
the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains,
that the intense winter warmth followed by
sudden extremes of cold may be fatal 10 fruit
culture; hut soil and climate matching that
soil and climate where the peach and apricot
flourish TO perfection are thought to be here.
Young apple trees set out last spring grew
from fifteen to thirty-siS inches during the
season.
STOCK.
The plateaus, or grand mcsas, as they are
commonly called, drained by the tributries
of the Gunnison and uncompahgre rivers, is
fine cattle country. There are great mesas
sloping down from the foot of the ranges,
containing hundreds of thousands of acres ot
fine, rich alluvial soil, which in summer, as
far as the eye can reach, is one great waving
sea of grass resembling hluc-ioint. but in
reality gramma grass. Here are vast ranges
yet to be occupied, and to become the stock
growing paradise. la winter stock can be
run in the valley country below these high
mcsas, where bunch-grass abounds and but
little snow is met with, save in exceptional
winters Last year profit Of so TO 100 per
cent was made on stock. Mich cows are
from $50 to SIS; stock cows. SS5; work oxen,
Sio0 to Si25 per yoke; beef, 5 to 10 cents per
pound; sheep, $3.50 to 81; horses, SIS to
500; mules, 500 to $50; ponies, $50 to $50.
GAME.
Game can he found here in great ahuud-
ancc. II is estimated that last winter fully
5000 deer were killed within few miles OF
Delta. Rabbits. ducks, geese, plorcrs, cur
lews, grouse and prairie chickens, beside the
larger game, such elk, deer, and several
varieties of bear, are found in every direction.
Mountain sheep can be found on the higher
mountain ranges. The streams are full of
speckled trout and salmon, aiiording fine
sport for the manipulation of the line and fly.
coal.
Delta is in the ncighhorhood of twenty
miles from Smiths Fork, North Fork, and
Surface creek, where coal deposits are extern
siye, and the quality equal to that of Penn.
sylvania. by analyses make by experienced
NETS tlurgists in the East, the bituminous coal
contains 15 per cent of carbon and but
small percentage Of ash and moisture; the
anthracite coal contains from SIS to 9S per
cent. carbon. For 500 miles east and 200
west this coal is not found As has been we'll
said, "All the country west of the Missouri
must depend upon these deposits. A country
larger than all the States east of the Missouri
river, the future millions must look to this
area for their supply of anthracitc.' Some
day the Pitisburg of the West will be found
within easy distance of Delta, furnishing u
market for the produce raised In the valleys
and mesa lands adjoining the town. Coal
THE. MARKETS.
All the mining camps west Of the Divide