Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-12-08
What Has Been Done.

What Has Been Done.
In the agitation for government aid
for retaining the arid lands it is per-
haps forgotten that enough has been
done in that line by private enterprises
to demonstrate that the reclamation of
the arid lands is no wild theory, no Wis
ionary scheme merely, but a project
whose success has been demonstrated
On a small scale in many parts of the
west. Thirty years ago most of south
ern California was a barren desert. Pas
adena vas a vast of shifting sands.
Today it is the most beautiful home
city in the land. Riverside was a des-
ert; today 10000 acres are in lemon
and orange groves, supporting 10000
people. Redlands was worse than a
desert. The more land a man owned
there the poorer he was. Redlands got
water and this year it shipped s., 200 600
worth of citrus fruit. Santa Ana, Or
ange, Corona, Highlands, Bloomington,
and a dozen other places in southern
California, where tropical plants and
fruits abound, were deemed so worth
have been a crime to take ten cents an
acre for sites which are now worth $500
to $500 an acre.
Go over to Arizona. The Salt River
valley only a little more than a decade
G was a desert that was the terror of
all travellers. The whole valley hardly
grew enough grass in summer to feed
one mule. Now 200, 900 acres are under
cultivation in hat same valley and in
it is located Phoenix, with which sur
roundings has $4,000 inhabitants.
Even the terrible Colorado desert in
Arizona is now being reclaimed and will
soon blossom like a garden in Cathay.
Take Colorado. Thirty years ago, no
n thought that Colorado could pro-
duce anything in the agricultural line
except on the few patches cultivated
here and there in the southern part by
the natives. Today 1000, 900 acres are
under cultivation. 1t exports potatoes,
strawberries, cantaloupes to surround
ing states. 1t feeds and fattens New
Mexico lambs; it supplies or will supply
foul big beet sugar factories with SUI
gar beets.
The same tale can be repeated of
Montana, where irrigation has done as
much as it has in southern California.
Utah has become a state of 300, 900 peo-
pie, although before the Mormons came
it would at times of drought have
starved a grasshopper. Irrigation did
it,. In Wyoming, in Idaho and else
where irrigation has performed mira
cles like those performed in Egypt ev-
cry year for the last six thousand
years.
In New Mexico the lower Pecos val
ley, adjoining the Staked Plains, was
long deemed beyond redemption. 1t was
a burning plain in summer and a bleak
waste in winter. 1t furnished a good
enough grazing land in some parts, ex-
cept in years of drouth, but that was
all. 10! what wonders irrigation has
performed there! The man who trav-
eled over it twenty years ago would not
recognize it again. Prosperous cities,
beautiful orchards, vast alfalfa fields
show where water has kissed the earth.
The same miracles has been repeated
in Colfax county, in San Juan county,
Bluewater in Valencia county.
1t is now being done in the east where
the farmers on the New Jersey sands
beginning to recognize the value of
stored waters, of irrigation.
Irrigation will the the watchword of
the farmer of Goth century. Irrigation
will make the west as rich an empire as
the whole nation is today. In this sec
ton where water is rare, where all
Hood waters should be stored, govern
.ent help is needed to do what it
would take private enterprise several
centuries to accomplish. 1t is merely
to hasten events and to prevent the
land and water from falling into the
hands of grasping monopolies. The be-
ginning that has been made by private
enterprise shows what car be done and
has also sufficiently illustrated that pri-
vate capital cannot make such enter
prises profitable to itself, although pro-
fitable to others, unless it charges ex-
orbitant prices for land and water.
The congress which first recognizes
grand opportunity, the vast posi-
that lie in the reclamation of
the arid west, and appropriates the first
300, 900, 900 toward the project, will be
by history as one of the wis
est law making bodies that has ever
oeen in session. 1t will do more for this
nation than the congress which author
yes the building of the Nicaragua can
u or the congresses that voted for the
annexation of hat vast domain which