The Lamar register. [volume] (Lamar, Colo.) 1889-1952, 1907-04-24
The Growth The Safe Is Making.


will grow to the stage where irriga
tion will commence and also pre-
pares the soil for the reception of
such seeds as has not yet been plant
ed. The dry land farmers have
cause to rejoice over their share in
the benefits of the storm and will
start on their season with much in
their favor now that the soil has had
its annual spring drenching.
1t is something Of an old story
with Republican readers, but cannot
be too often repeated, that Colorado
through its farming industry is to-
day making one of the greatest for
ward thrusts in its history. There
has never before been a time when
SO much attention was paid to con-
serving the waters and bringing the
lands under cultivation. New reser-
voir and canal projects are being ex-
plotted in nearly ever county of the
state that is touched by a running
stream. Experience has taught that
the state has no more enduring field
for enterprise and the investment of
capital than is offered in its un
developed lands. In late years the
farmers and ditch builders have been
having something Of lead over all
others in the matter of money
making. The farm lands have by
tabulation been shown to have made
an average advance of 4S per cent
in the last five years. Not only have
they come to command that in
creased price on the market, but their
earning power has advanced in keep
ing and even beyond the present
valuations. 1t is seen that they are
to increase in value with the years,
that they possess advantages over all
other farm lands, and that when the
day comes that no more land can be
brought under irrigation, the acres
that command water will go to prices
more in keeping with their earning
value. Having seized this truth the
enterprise founders who for long
neglected the opportunity, are get
ting hold of land and water and pre-
pairing to bring the two together
with a zeal that promises far great
er Colorado soon to be realized.
1t is fact that settlers are coming
into the state today at faster rate
than ever before. Every farming
community is re-adjusting itself to q
new basis Of population, doubling
the size of the, towns, cutting the
farms in two or making room for
new comers by opening new areas to
the plow. In the main these settlers
have sold out their eastern homes or
farms and come to Colorado with
money sufficient to establish them
selves in the land. They are coming
because they have discoyered that
one Colorado acre under water Is
worth half dozen or more in the
section from which they come and
because they have found better
country in which to live and con-
serve their energies. Once settled
in the state they are not going to
leave. Colorado has won them for
citizens and home builders.
There have been mining booms
that drew thousands of new settlers
to the state. The Leadvllle one in
the early days fastened the state on
the map and advertised it to all the
world. 1t served a purpose of ines
timable value, but rightly weighed,
the present movement means even
more to the permanent welfare of
the state. 1t is the biggest state
making movement Colorado has ever
known and everything suggests that
1t will grow in volume until every
new acre being opened by the ditch
builders has been brought under Gull
tiyation. The lines have been drawn
to expand the states population to
double what it is today and to pro
vide scope for energy for half
million more in the lines of manu-
facture and commerce which the in
crease in the farming sections will
call into being. Colorado is in the
midst of new era and nothing but
the failure of its we'll wishers to hold
fast to the conditions under which
progress is made can interrupt its
destiny.-Denver Republican.