Imperial press and farmer., 1902-04-05

250 voters in the Coacheila valley, and these represent probably not less than 750 people.
 1t almost goes without saying that a town is springing up at Coachella. It already has general store, blacksmith shop, employing three men, lumber yard, butcher shop, restaurant, and three cottages. An ice plant is to be ready to furnish a supply for handling the forthcom- ing crop. A telephone line is build ing to connect Indio and Walters. by way of Coachela and Kokell (for- merly Thermal Station). Through out the valley many houses are in course of constructon-mainly of a cheap kind, but some of them run ming in cost as high as $500 to 5000 each. They will furnish shelter to the Coachella farmers until some thing more commodous can be con- structed.
 The Temperature.
 The objection which naturally arises to settlement in the Coachella | Valley is on account of the extreme heat It does get very hot there in the middle of summer-no doubt | about that-the thermometer some times scoring IF to 120 deg. in the | shade. But it Is the temperature of the desert which makes the success | of farming in that locality. producing crops much earlier than they can be | grown anywhere else in the country | and commanding the topmost prices in the market. Men who see success awaiting them are willing to sacrifice q good deal in the way of comfort. Those who pioneered this enterprise at Coachella are disposed to mini mize their difficulties. They say that during a good portion of the year, the climate is very agreeable. In the winter it is about as pleasant as in Los Angeles. The extreme hot weather of summer comes only in spells lasting two or three days at time. The nights are generally cool, making blankets comfortable even through most of the summer On the whole, considering the extreme dry ness of the atmosphere, perhaps one suffers no moro from the heat at Go achella than he would in one of the Eastern or Southern States The general average of summer temper ature at Coachella during the day
  considered as equivalent to S6 in the more humid climate of the Atlantic seaboard.
 Although all of the government land within the proven arabic belt of Coachella has been taken up. there still remains a large body embracing nine sections. belonging to the es- tate of the late A. N. Towne, and in corporated under the name of the Coachella Land and Water Company. Of this, about four thousand acres is considered susceptible of water de velopment and cultivation. This Is on the market and is being sold rap idly in lots of twenty to forty acres at $50 per acre.
 An Argument for Irrigation.
 Advocates of national system of irrigation for the redemption of the . 60,000,000 or more acres of land which | are now lying waste and worse than useless in the great interior and ! western portions of the United States, | may find encouragement for their en- terprise, and an object lesson worth | citing in this almost phenomenal de- velopment of an oasis in the heart of the Colorado Desert. Here is tract nine miles broad and thirteen miles long which, sixteen months ago. was virtually uninhabited The chief service which it rendered to mankind was to furnish roadbed for a trans continental railway line This ser ytn.N Nf.>.1 "a axH