The Arizona sentinel., 1888-08-04
FERTILE A7IZoaa.
Marvellous Richness O: Salado and
 Cila Valleys.
Special Correspondence Boston Heraldl

throngn town haoitually, year II
 ana year out, perhaps forming his esti , mate of its character by the unattract live aspect of the rear end of the build ings presented towards the track, or
 of the shabby appearance of things in
 the neighborhood of the station. The most dismal hole on earth! Is the iudg
 ment pronounced on the strength of ] such testimony. At last he has ocea
 sion to make stop there, and as he
 passes through the streets of the town
 and witnesses universal evidences of
 prosperity, and sees the taste of the
 inhabitants manifest in beautiful sur
 rounaings on all sides, such unsus-
 pected features impress hlm deeply,
 and effect complete revulsion in his
 opinion. It is rare, however, that a
 parallel to this is found in traversing
 8 great extent of territory and judg-
 ing thereof, and few states in our
 Union could be crossed in daylight
 without affording opportunity to form
 a fairly correct idea of theif. sshvsical
 characteristics. An exception to this
 Is to be found in the southwesiernmost
 of eur territories. Passengers who
 pass through Arizona over the line of
 the Southern Pacific railway go from
 boundary with the characteristic of
 the land and soil which probably orig
 mated the name of the Territory
 "Arid Zone," or Arizona-so strongly impressed upon their minds by every
 thing that they see that the idea of agricultural resources existing in such reglon would seem supremely ridicu
 lous. And yet one of the richest agri- cultural districts in the United States IS within a comparatively few miles of their route, and che mountain ranges near by the northward, whose thither sides look out over the broad and level valleys of the Gila and Salado rivers, checkered with verdant fields, might be compared to those houses that pre-
 sent their fronts to the handsome street of town, while they conceal that street from the railway passen- gers.
 Had the projectors of the Southern Pacific any idea of the potentialities of these valleys, they would, probaly have adopted different route for their line, and closely followed the course of the Gila, as they might easily have done with slghter engineering difficult ties than they encountered on the line selected. But the policy of that railway has never yet appeared to be the de velopment of good local traffic by en- couraging the growth of contiguous ter ritorY, and their idea was to get the shortest line across the continent at tainable on their route. Great as the mineral wealth of Arizona undoubted ly is, 1t is not that which will confer the privilege of statehood upon the territory, but the development of the resources contained i'll the soil of her river valleys, foremost of which are the semitropical regions of the Gila and the Salado or Salt These advan-. tages were appreciated by the ancient inhabitants, the remains of whose cities and enormous irrigating works cover the ground in all directions, and MT. Cushing's researches indicate prehistoric population of almost Chi, nese density, so that, had Arizona the number of inhabitants to-day that she possessed unknown ages ago, she would stand well up the ranks of the states with census showing at least l,00O,- poo. The conditions of irrigation pro- mote great density of population, and as irrigation is what is restoring fertility to this wonderful soil, it is probable that pre- history will repeat itself
 The Gila and Salt river valleys even n midwinter have semi tropical as oect, with the sunshine streaming warm all day and the doors thrown vide open in the friendly fashion of southern countries. There are less han two months when some trees are , eafess and ice forms at night, and : hen, early in February, the apricots md peaches begin to bloom and the