Arizona weekly enterprise., 1889-12-07
A RICH VALLEY.
FINAL COUNTIES ETERNAL BANK
 ACCOUNT.

AOCOONAs
 Something of the Resources of our West ern Possessions as Depicted by an
 Intelligent and Capable Gentle
 man.
 EDITOR ENTERPRISE: To comply with your request to give you the re- suit of my recent investigation in this great and beautiful mountain trimmed Paradise valley or open plain whic h extends more than one hundred miles in length by fifty miles in breadth, would require volume to contain 1t. This great valley or open plain is crossed from east to west by the Salt river on the northerly part in the cen ter by the Gila river, and in the south erly part by the sunken Santa Cruz river. The divides between these rivers in their passage through the great plain being so slight the eye does not detect them.
 As the valley of the Salt river on the north of this plain is so fortunate as to embrace the beautiful city of Phe- nix, now twenty years of age, the Capitol City of the Territory and of Maricopa county, with population of about 5000 souls and two daily news papers, with all of the advertising en- ergy and push of any of the older frontier cities, there is little to be aid about their valley in addition to what they have published and made known throughout our country. By the statistics recently published by them I learn they have in this valley one hundred and seventy-six miles of irri- gating canals, covering 250,OOO acres of land. Along and near this river is a very light sandy soil after leaving this sand, which extends about half mile in width, then commences quite a body of very heavy adobe land, about two and half miles in width, extend ing towards the northeast some three miles. On some of this adobe land the "cement or hard pan," so called, comes very near to the surface. On land of this character the best crops are grain and alfalfa of which they yield enor- nous crops of the latter, four or more crops per year and are pastured by horses, cattle, sheep and hogs the year round these animals thrive and grow fat upon it at all seasons of the year. These lands naturally require irriga- ting very often in the hot dry sum- mers. The soil beyond this adobe belt towards the foot hills is light sand, near the foot hills it becomes more gravelly. This light soil is the best fruit land in the valley. About Tempe, nine miles east of Phenix, the soil is heavy adobe with considerable alkali, though not enough to generally interfere with the crops of grain and alfalfa, but the land is almost worth less for fruit growing for profit.
 MESA CITY.
 The Mormon settlement eighteen miles of Phenix, on the south side of the river, is, as its name indicates, on the high mesa or table land. The soil is sandy loam and well adapted to all kinds of fruit. The Mormons have made great success in fruit growing and wine making and have made a garden of the place during their short occupancy of ten years.
 OF THE VALLEY OF THE GREAT CHA RIVER.
 Coming through your county of Pinal and west to the line of Yuma county, I find little printed matter of any sort concerning it and as there is but one newspaper, the Arizona EN- TERPRIsE, published at Florence the beautiful capital of Pinal county, to set forth it's many advantages, I will go more into details concerning my ih- vestigation in this valley.
 It may be no surprise to you, buE it certainly was to me and will bezto nearly every one outside of the valley, to learn that you have 257 miles of ir- rigating canals constructed and in pro- cess of construction at this time, cov- ering 500 900 acres of land, by the fol lowing companies viz: Buckeye, Gila River, Enterprise, Gould Bros, Palmer, Citrus, Monarch Ditch, Gila River IT, rigation Company, Gila Bend Canal Company the canal in the Pima and Maricopa reservation for which the government paid $l50,000 for con struction is used by these ever friendly and most self-sustaining" Native Ameri- cans" from way back, for irrigating their lands and they are celebrated as grain growers and cattle raisers.
 The Florence Canal, which takes the water several miles above your beautiful city of the same name, has it's work now completed tQ the Southern Pacific Railroad at Casa Grande sta tion. The width of this canal is 9 feet at the bottom with sloping sides, so as to give an average width of thirty six feet. It is designed to carry a volume of water four feet deep.
 The soil of the valley at the Gila river IS of general sandy loam, very little adobe in any of it and is far
 SUPERIOR TO THAT OF THE SALT RIVER
 VALLEY
 for growing fruits. In this valley every variety of grapes, oranges, lem ons, olives, figs, gs,pomegranates, peaches apricots, French prunes, almonds, dates apples, quinces, strawberries, black berries, &c., are grown to great per lection and for all kinds of grain and alfalfa it has but few superiors.
 THE VALLEY OF THE sUNKEN SANTA
 CRUZ RIVER,
 is undoubtedly the finest one in the Territory for fruit growing. This val ley has several feet of rich red loam soil with several feet of light sandy soil underlying it.
 The valley is warmer in the winter than either that of the Gila or Salt river. The soil requires less irrigation than the other valleys described and with thorough cultivation produces tt a wonderful degree; it will undoubted ly prove to be the Citrus Belt of South. ern Arizona. The soil never bakes like the adobe lands further north For fruit growing and all kinds o agriculture and stock raising it is mol and cannot be surpassed
 THE ARIZONA VINEYARD COMPANY,