The Caldwell tribune., 1905-12-02
Conquest :. y. Great
American Desert
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short years when she will rank with
any of the Northwestern States in
agricultural greatness. The recent act
of the Interior Department of the
United States in setting aside $1,000,-
600 toward reclaiming three or four
hundred thousand acres in the Milk
River Valley is but beginning of a
much vaster development of this Sec
ton as the needs grow .apace. Al
ready the agricultural worth Of this
to be famous valley has been ade-
quately demonstrated in the results
which have followed the irrigation
works already established. 1t has
been successfully proven that all kinds
of agricultural products grow in great
abundance wherever irrigation is used.
The soil is naturally rich and needs
only moisture to make 1t yield prolific
ally. The Great Northern Railways 8
main line practically cuts the valley
In two. The fact that the government
has decided to begin immediate oper-
y -ations will prove a great incentive to
the people of that section who have
always believed in the future of their
country and will open to settlement q
vast area Of rich land to the home
seeker and investor.
Professor Elwood Mead, the irriga-
tton expert of the United States De-
partment Of Agriculture, has borne en-
thusiastic testimony to the great capa-
bilities Of the Sacramento Valley when
supplied with water, In canals and
bitches, for irrigation. He says, in an
official report, that its available water
supply should make it ''the Egypt of
the Western hemisphere"
The irrigable area of the valley is
estimated to be more than 100000
acres, and calculations show that the
average annual discharge Of the Sac
ramento River at its mouth Is suffi-
cient to irrigate every acre of this
great area. Professor Mead, after re-
marking that it Is a sinful waste to
allow SO much water to flow unused
to the sea, save for purposes of navi-
cation, thus illustrates the astonish-
ing variety of the products of the
soil: ,n
+ within a radius Of Ave miles in
the Sacramento Valley l saw every
product of the temperate and semi
tropical zones which l could call to
mind. Apples and oranges grew side
by side, as did oak and almond trees.
There were olives from the South and
Chnrrina from tho Mouth doto v>oIY,,
seemed equally at home with an alfal-
ia meadow; figs and Tokay grapes
were apparently as much in their ele-
ment as the fields of wheat or barley
or the rows of Indian corn, some of
the stalks Of which measured fifteen
feet in height. All of these could
have been grown on single acre, and
doubtless have been"
In another report the same authori-
ty expresses like view, as follows:
In September last l saw a part Of
the Sacramento Valley in its most un-
lovely aspect One Of the trips taken
was from Chico to Willows, two towns
about thirty miles apart, but the road
thirty-f1ve miles shrdlu cmfwyp shrd
travelled made the distance about
thtrty-fve miles. We crossed what Is
potentially one Of the most fertile and
promising agricultural districts on this
continent. For scores of miles the
land rises by q gentle and uniform
slope from the Sacramento River to-
ward the foothills on either side. Wa
ter would flow over every acre of the
country traversed without requiring
much labor in its direction or skill in
the location Of lateral bitches. The
plains of Lombardy are not better suit
ed to irrigation, nor the soil Of the
Nile Delta more fertile than were
these lands originally. For a half
century they have been devoted to the
unremitting production Of cereal
crops. Each season the crop has been
harvested, the grain shipped away,
and the straw burned, and nothing
done to replace the plant food with
drawn. A more exhaustive form of
agriculture cannot be imagined. AL
though this surprising drain has gone
on for fifty years, it cannot continue
forever.
The absence of rainfall during the
harvest period is one of the great ad-
vantages Of California, where the
needed moisture can be supplied by
irrigation. 1t is likewise one of the
greatest obstacles to diversified agri-
culture where dependence is had on
rainfall alone. The natural opportu-
mites Of the district traversed are
equal to, If not greater than those of
the country surrounding Riverside.
Cal, which has been appropriately
designated as the Garden Spot of
America" but a difference in agricul-
tural ideas has produced a correspond
ing difference in conditions.
The bonanza wheat farm and the
bonanza orchard were In accord with
the spirit which from the first has
dominated the industries of CGlifor-
mia. 1t is State of vast enterprises.
Men pride themselves on great under
talkings and doing whatever they un-