The Arizona sentinel., 1908-12-30

HO" Ah l'I CNSOo O4 S"OhOOA uN ulCd by the United States Reclama- tion Service for the irrigation of the arid lands near Yuma, it's comprehensive character and it's nexibility for future extension, appear so little understood, even by people who have opportunity for personal examination, that I am pleased to submit the follow ing description of the Project, upon which depends much of Yuma'S future, in response to your recent request.
 The completion: of this work is being watched with general in. terest, as evidenced by the nu- merous letters of inquiry coming to the Project office, which dur. ing the past few months have averaged about six day. Be sides inquiries from about every State in the Union, we have re- ceived letters from Canada, Mex ico, Cuba, Hawaiian Islands, Philippines, and the Orange River Colony in South Africa, showing a world wide interest in our future development. All these letters are promptly an- swered and the additional spe- citic inquiries received in many cases indicate that when the ca nals are ready to deliver water upon the land, settlers will ar rive from all points of the com pass. And they will do we'll to follow such a course, for this region is destined to become one of the richest agricultural sec tions, not only of this country, but of the world. When one con siders that this locality has dur ing the past thirty years had an annual mean temperature of about 72 degrees; that frosts are rare; that some form of vegeta. tion can flourish every month of the year; that it's inexhaustible water supply carries so much plant food that artificial fertil- izers are superfuous; that we are but 8 degrees north of the egua- tor and from 13O to 220 feet above sea level, with an ex- tremely healthful climate that allows nearly all varieties of az ricultural products to flourish in abundance: when, in addition to the above advantages, a favoring government is spending millions of treasure to make the Colorado assist the labor of man, it is not hard to become optimistic about the future of "The Country that God Forgot"
 The factor of prime impor tance in an irrigation scheme is the water supply and the Yuma Project is particularly fortunate in this regard, for the Colorado River of the West flows through out the entire length of the irrl- gable area from north to south, a distance of about forty miles. The drainage area of the stream above Yuma approximates a quarter million square miles and includes portions of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, California, Ne vada, New Mexico, Old Mexico, and nearly all of Arizona. The principal supply comes from the melting snows in the high noun tains. In it's present state the lowestrecorded flow of the stream is sufficient to irrigate an area several times larger than that now contemplated near Yuma, so there can be no danger of a water famine. As the work of the Reclamation Service advauc. es immense storage reservoirs along the upper reaches of the Colorado and it's tributaries will so conserve the food discharge, allowing the water to flow at a uniform rate throu ghout the year, that the irrigation possi@ bilitieS of this stream are hard to estimate. The settler on the Yuma Project will find a water supply which is never failing.
 The lands to be irrigated first are the rich alluvial bottoms built up by silt from the Cobra