Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-04-27
MAGIC OF IRRIGATION
1t Transforms the Trackless Desert
Into Fields Of Waving Grain and
Blooming Orchards,
A VISION OF THE FUTURE
Irrigation Helps to Pertilize Fields-Vast
Areas That Can Be Reclaimed and
Which Can Supports Large
Population.

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rigated fields is a source of considerable
wonder to the farmer dependent upon
rain for his crops, and who must each
year apply large quantities of fertilizer
to his field in order to produce good
yields, if not to prevent absolute soil ex-
haustiOn. This phenomenon of irriga-
ton is easily explained. Analysis of the
waters of various rivers and springs
uency of certain chemicals which form
the bulk of plant food, such, for in
stance, as potash and nitrogen. From
French experiments it is concluded that
tity of water generally used in France
would receive therefrom as much pot
ash as would be furnished by an appli-
cation of thirty loads of ordinary stable
have shown that the mineral substance
supplied by the water was in excess of
the needs of the crop. In all water
which m from diversions of rivers
or storage reservoirs there is an addi-
tion to the chemical constituency of
plant food, more or less solid matter.
The mud or ooze held in suspension in
irrigation waters and supplied by them
to the soil cannot fail to add to its fer
tility. Thus irrigation water is a con-
slant source of enrichment, and fields
which have been watered for hundreds
of years are as productive and fertile
one ear as another, for the application
of water supplies them with both food
and drink.
UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.
A great share of the west is to-day
almost as much an undiscovered our
try as it was before the cry of gold was
heard from California. Mountains of
untold richness lie ~undeveloped and des-
olate, surrounded by burning plains and
barren wastes. Not only gold, but the
baser metals are locked in countless
tons in the rocky bosom of the west
ern sierras. And why are they not
mined? Why does not capital flow in
to make the boulder and the earth I'M
burden their treasures for mans use?
Why? Because of lack of water. Be-
cause of lack of transportation. Tor
rents of immense volume rush down the
slopes during the period of melting
SHOWS and spread away in glistening
streams through the brown valleys or
over broader plains, but in a little while
their volume wanes and anon they are
dry beds of sand, supporting no life
nor growth. Yet were the vast bulk of
this waste water stored in mountain
reservoirs it would afford a perennial
supply, capable of irrigating millions of
acres of land whose great fertility has
lain dry and dormant for thousands of
deloped. In sections where irrigation
has forced its way there railroads have
followed, and with the soil yield
ing the necessaries of life to man and
transportation at hand, mines have
been developed and added millions to
the mineral output, which otherwise |
would have lain dormant forever.
LAND FOR SETTLEMENT.
The statement hat the saying, go
west. young man." has lost it's potency |
and its force could never be made for
years to come if a policy of internal i'm
would water the millions Of acres of
western public land now lying arid. AS
'All that tread the globe are but a !
handful
To the tribes that slumber in it's BOSOM
the present population of the great
west is but a vanguard of the multi |
-udes of Industrious workers who would
Guild up beautiful homes and rear hap
families, We're the waters which now
go to the sea in prodigal waste but
stored by the government and used to
the fertile lands which to-day
support only the cactus and the horned
A striking instance of what has
been accomplished in the west and what
possibilities lie awaiting development
nay be found in California, which, with
I'll it's great agricultural wealth, has
till 5000, 900 acres of government land,
more than half the area of the state,
II, 100000 of which are susceptible
If irrigation. Yet the city Of Chicago
las to-day a larger population than
California.
A TRANSPORTATION.
Under the magic kiss of the mountain
fed by the melting SHOWS, the
brown desert of the arid west becomes
he field of waving grain, the golden or
hard or the purple vineyard of a thriv-
ng and %populous community.
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