The Lamar register. [volume] (Lamar, Colo.) 1889-1952, 1906-12-26
SUGAR BEErs
Worth More Than Gold Mines to the
Rich Arkansas Valley.

The following description of the
Arkansas Valley is taken from the
Kansas City. journal, and is fail
statement of the great work going
on here:
The sugar beet has come to the
Arkansas valley of Kansas and Colo.
RADIO to make it the most productive
and profitable of all territory of like
area trsversed by the Atchison, To
peka & Santa Fe railway, in its long
journey from the Great Lakes to the
ocean. This in the irrigation
region.
Eastward, in the lower valley OF
Kaneas, where abundant rainfall
nourishes the soil, this valley by it's
wheat and corn ane alfalfa and cat
tie and orchard and dairy has be-
come a wonder of agriculture and,
by the same influence, the Cotton
wood and the Kaw valleys no less
marvellous; but when the upper Ar
kansas valley, from Dodge City,
Kan, west to Pueblo, where the
waters of the stream disgorge from
the mountains and enter the plains,
shall have come to its own, there
will be no other soil so productive
ON the face Of the continent.
This is no fancy sketch of idle
proph ecy; for even now, when the
earth's surface in these parts barely
has been scratched with the plow and
agriculture is in its infancy, some OF
the valley, by intense tillage, has be-
come the most valuable farm land in
America, and it only is a matter OF
time, until the whole valley within
the range of irrigation will be equal
ly productive and valuable. For
this arid and once neglected region
only lacks the hand Of industry and
the nourishing touch ol water to turn
every foot Of it into gold.
Already three counties of the val
Icy in Colorado, for the moment not
considering the rich counties over
the line in Kansas, annually produce
more by the industry of husband
man than the value Of whole years
gold of the Colorado mines; and the
credit belongs to the sugar beet.
To be sure, cereals and fruits came
to the valley and made it habitable
and profitable before the beet was in
troduced; but it was not until the
beet came with its marvellous reward
of industry that land values became
fixed and certain. For the sugar
beet of the valley has rivals only in
isolated and peculiar soil and eli
mate, while cereals and fruits are
staple products everywhere.
Agriculture leads all other pro-
ducts Of the state combined nearly q
million dollars in value. The Ar
kansas valley of Colorado produces,
tits estimated by authorities quoted
above, thrse-sevenths of the states
agriculture, or last year, littls more
than $32,OO0,OO0 of value. This
was $3,OOO.OOO more than last years
value of all the states gold.
The valley in Colorado includes
the counties of Prowers, Otero and
Bent and q small part of Pueblo.
The total population Of this territory
including all Of Pueblo county
Census of 1900 was 52,7S5. The
irrigated land of the four counties
(1900 is 3S8,921 acres, or about
100000 acres less than the total
area at present lying within reach OF
the canals.
The Arkansas valley of Colorado
produces sugar beets, wheat, corn,
barley, alfalfa, wild hay, sorghum,
fax, oats, potatoes, watermelons, oan-
taloupes, apples, peaches, plums,
nectarines, prunes and bush fruits
and all in great abundance. The
wheat crop is enough to bread the
inhabitants and some over for ship
ment. 1t il the best milling wheat,
and weighs "a pounds to the bushel.
The yield is 40 bushels per acre and
there is one record of seventy.
And these possibilities are not
not only in Colorado. The soil and
climatic conditions are the same in
Kansas, only the sugar beet has not
been SO long established there. That
part of the valley has been growing
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