The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-04-08

Southern $57l,561,S03 Ro34,953
tOmtted from total
coaxed and demonstrated to the ranch
holders that their possessions could be
made far more profitable to them pro-
Vided the country were divided up into
ownership of forty and eighty acre gar
den truck patches, with ample artesian
and river water for irrigation. They be-
lieved him, and an era of great pros
perity set in for a region which before
had been given up wholly to thousands
and thousands of head of cattle.
The fact that sugar cane raised In this
wonderful coastal plain country took the
first prize at the St. Louis exposition,
excelling both in size and in the amount
of saccharine matter the best product
of Cuba and Louisiana. was a strong
argument with Yoakum and his associates
to populate and develop the territory for
economic, resans as rapidly as possible
The fact that the cane needed replant-
ing only once in ten years, as against
three in most other countries, that the
yield was more than COCO pounds of milled
sugar to the acre, without special cultl-
walton or irrigation; that an onion crop
would yield 5000 an acre and carrots $40.
and other remarkable figures for garden
truck, warranted Mr. Yoakum in attempt
ing the most stupendous piece of irriga-
ton yet undertaken in the United States
by private capital. He was to make
Southwestern Texas the sugar BOWL
and the vegetable garden of the con-
tinent.
The water which will irrigate the first
100000 acres will be supplied by the Rio
Grande itself and by it alone. This
Yoakum discovered could be done with
unique economy owing to the remarkable
topography of the country to. be irrigated
for the valley of the Rio Grande, unlike
the valleys of all other great rivers In its
lower reaches drains away flom and not
toward the stream. Therefore all that is
necessary to carry the abundant waters of
this river into the thirsty valley is u
single lift of from eight to thirty feet
That small application of energy on the
part of the various pumping plants now
being established is all that is necessary
to place water at any and all points in
the valley. Gravity does the rest Pump
ing stations are now being rapidly in
stalled at necessary points along the river
and operated from a central power sta
ton which the irrigation company has
now almost completed at Mercedes, the
prospective metropolis of the young en-
pire. From Mercedes will issue a net work
of canals, extending in every direction
and measuring more than three hundred
miles In aggregate length
Work was begun on the project on May
l, 1906, and has been progressing steadily
ever since BY next year thousands of
acres will be irrigated There are over a
million acres which will ultimately be
brought under irrigation in .,Sis section,
and when the plan Is fully developed it
will stand as one of the greatest irrega-
ton systems of the world AS a project
it far exceeds the federal reclamation in
a Il. i. L. t..4.-
thousand acres are being placed under
canal, with the Colorado river as the
source of water supply.
1t is into the Rio Grande valley particu-
larry that Yoakum hopes to divert the
sturdy South European mmigrat, bred to
generations of vine and olive and citrus
fruit culture. For not only is the Rio
Grande valley capable of producing fabu-
1ous returns in the way of sugar, but 1t
offers even greater inducements to the
raising of oranges lemons, grapes dates,
figs, cotton, corn and truck crop, all of
which are today being cultivated here in
a limited way. with returns per acre run
ming from 500 to $780, depending upon the
nature of the crop and the amount and
distribution of the rainfall. The inevitable
uncertainty of raising crops when obliged
to depend upon the rainfall will be en-
tirely eliminated by irrigation, and in this
SuD-loplcdl 'illiidlt liltIt Will never again
be a question of obtaining maximum
crops OF whatever may lie planted The
region Is thousand miles nearer the
great eastern markets than California.
The climate is finer al1 the soil far nspre
fertile. 1t has IT the ariiity Of tine fruit
growing lands of Southern California.
The man Yoakum, who conceived and Is
executing it all. Is himself a Texan. and
the fact that circumstances have at last
obliged him to come to New York and
identify himself with the coterie of rail-
road magnates, of which he has for years
been one of the biggest, makes him none
the less a Texan both in spirit and in APP
pearance. He Is a big man, standing six
feet one, and is broad shouldered proper
tionatey. His eyes are blue-gray and
eagle-like in their shrewdness. When on
this side of the Mississippi river he wears
plain black derby hat, but nobody on
the other side ever saw him in aught but
the great, broad brimmed, soft black felt
of the Texas tradition. He was born near
Tehunaca, In Limestone county, forty
eight years ago, the son of a country
physician who was one of the pioneers of
Texas His uncle, Henderson Yoakum, a
well-known lawyer in those days, was the
author of the first authentic history of
the state of Texas. When Benjamin
Franklin Yoakum was a small boy his
father abandoned the practice of medicine
to become president or the Cumberland
Presbyterian college at Larissa. and 1t
was the family hope that the boy should
become a minister.
The boy, however. even at that time,
was dominated by a single idea To be
an engineer. a railroad man. was his am
bition. It stood in his youthful mind for
all that was great and manly. He began
his earnest life as a rodman on rail-
road surveying party. 1t was not long
= IL .-ttr l.f.f he
gained the position by earnest work.
His first job was on the international
and Great Northern, which was just then
building line into Palestine, Tex.
He has been in the railroad business
ever since From a rodman he passed
through the various stages of the con-
struction department and gained an ex-
tensive experience with various railroads
all over the state. Then he became a land
boomer. or immigration agent. for the