Arizona weekly enterprise., 1888-03-03
FLORENCE.
Hts Enterprise and Future Pos
 sibiIffieS,
(Tucson Daily Citizen,)

(Tucson Daily Citizen,)
 No community in Arizona is more sanguine of it's future prospects than that com prising the good people of Florence, nor indeed, have any better cause. Flor ence is centrally located in the Gila river valley--if valley its far reachin 9 miles of rich and tillable lands can be called, inasmuch as it is difficult to de- termine where the table land begins and the valley ends. A fractional portion of this land has been farmed for twenty or more years, and sustained in compara- tive comfort tue dwellers thereon,, as it had done its teeming thousands when the world was yet young. But where one one acre has been titled thousands were left unbroken by the blow. The spirit of enterprise had not yet been born for Arizona or had failed to find lodgment on the banks of the Gila, which, in the rosy dawn of a near future, will bloom and blossom as the rose.
 This is no vision of fancy, no imagina- tive theme, but a tangible something with it's prospective realization close at hand. The land is rich and great of area, the water fructifying and abundant, but which, till now, has hid itself in waste while the coyote prowled at will over the vast and virgin plain. But what sufficed for the wants of yesterday, but lily requires the wants of to-day; the unprere ntious hamlet expands Into a city and the almost tenantless valley be- comes populous and rich. The Florence of the present will be lost in the Flor ence of the future when the tide of inn migration shall have turned her way.
 Heretofore the land cultivated was tributary to few small lrrigating ditch es, the owners thereof not being tinan- cially able to take advantage of the mag nifcent possibilities the surplus waters of the Gila offered for the reclamation of the lands lying towards the south for q distance of fifty miles and which are pro- verbal for their richness. 4 year ago, however, they succeeded in engaging the attention of capitalists, and canal in- tersecting the river at the "Narrows," was begun which will bring under culti- vation 40, 1000 acres. Already fifteen miles of this canal has been constructed at an expense of nearly $S0, 900, and al- though Work is temporarily suspended 1t will shortly be recommended and push ed forward to completion. This ditch will be owned and controlled by the Florence Canal Company under the inn mediate supervision of w. N. Crandall, an experienced engineer. Along the line of this ditch about forty thousand acres of land have been taken up under the various land laws and timber culture act, but there is room for thousands more. Satisfactory arrangements have been made with the company for the Wa ter passing through their ditch and in an- other year Pinal will take the foremost place among the agricultural counties of the territory.
 Florence is to-day one of the few towns in Arizona to which immigrants can be invited with the certainty that homes and lands await their coming. The soil is rich and the climate all that can pessi- bly, be desired, perhaps a little warm in midsummer, but as rule it strikes the happy medium and is never too hot nor too cold. Anything will grow that can he produced elsewhere in the United States Grain and fruit thrives equally well and vegetation springs into life whenever water slakes the thirsty soil.
 Here is an opportunity for good homes that nc other section in the west, outside of Arizona, can offer, but people in quest of such places, ignorant of it's existence, crowd by and Jostle each other in their struggle to get to California where lands are high in price-beyond the reach of the averge class of investors-and nature smiles less kindly on the husbandman It will not do for the Florencians to hide their light under bushel, the home seeker must know where his highest am btion can be gratifed. The advantages of the county should be extensively ad- vertised, and when strangers find their way among them they should be shown that which has alrea dy been accomplish ed. The fine homes and fields of luxu- riant grain, orchards and vineyards mus not be overlooked and the seed thus sown will grow and bring forth fruit. There are many properties on the river which, If seen by visiting strangers, would induce them to cast their all with the county and people thereabouts. Let this be done, let the advantages the country offers for home seeking settlers be sown broadcast, not much at home, but abroad; and when but half her beau ties and her virtues become known, the rush of immigrants to her lands will ex- ceed all expectations.