The Arizona sentinel., 1908-07-29
POSSIBILITIES OF YUMA REGION UNEMPLOYED The Soil Simply Marvellous in Its
 PrOduCtiyeneSS And the Climate is IntOxiCatinqly
 SdlubriOuS
BY GEORGE N. BURTON, In Los Angeles Times.

BY GEORGE N. BURTON,
 In Los Angeles Times
 It is very far from a semi-millenium since three little open boats under the flag of Spain first touched the waters of the western hemi. sphere and revealed the new world to the eyes of Europeans. It is only little over a century since the United States of America sprang, SO to speak, like Pallas Athene from the brain of love, a completely armed ad- dition to the family of nations. It is but little yer half century since California be. came a part of these United States Of America, and less than generation since the settle ment of the Great South west began. In all the l25 years since the Republic was founded, also in the half century since Cali fornia became one of the States of the Union and during every year of the last thirty a re- | aliZatiOn of the vast riches of the American continent, of the territory of the United States and of this Great Southwest has been more and more astonishing to the minds of men. One would suppose that by today we ! knew pretty thoroughly what the undeveOp- l ed resources of the Great Southwest might | reasonably he expected to become. We have not reached the depths of this great ocean of wealth with our plummet line yet.
 In residence of forty years on the Coast the writer thought he knew little about what there is on the Coast, and as most of these years have been spent in and around Los Angeles, he naturally had little con- ceit that he was pretty well acquainted with the Great Southwest. Last week a trip to the Colorado River bottoms. below Yuma made hIm feel as tenderfoot who had come in on the last train. New to him, this wonderful region and it's possibilities are pretty well known to a great many readers of The Times by the stories published, if not by the demon stration of their own eyes,
 Yuma lies on the map just twelve miles from where the government is putting in the great Laguna dam, at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. It is twelve miles from Yuma down the river to the Mexican bounGry line on the Arizona side of the river At one point. just below Yuma. the interna- tional boundry line runs up along the river which there takes westerly trend and from Yuma to Mexico is only q few miles.
 ONCE A MIGHTY STREAM
 Ages ago when the mountain ranges of Arizona and California lowered toward the stars, at least twice as high they do now, rains were very freduent and came down in torrcntal volumes all along these mountain ridges. The Colorado River in these past ages was mighty stream, sweeping down debris in tons every second of it's flow. The ColOra- do sink was at that time great inland sea, which spread over the country on both sides of where the river now runs. As the erosion of winds and storms, landslides and glaciers wore down the mountain ridges year by year, the great river carried down d vast amount of silt, erosion from the rocks full of phOs. phateS times and dIsintergrated granites, as well as the vegetation along It's banks; and this was all deposited in what are now the sinks of the Colorado.
 AS the mountain tops were worn down. the rains became less frequent and less in volume but the erosion of rocks and river banks, the trees and vegetable mould torn from the banks still came down and settled into the bottom of the great inland lake. This geogica process went on from age to age to our time, leaving the Colorado at Yuma a stream about half a mile wide and being at the present time about twenty feet deep ia the deepest portion.
 It is not necessary to remind Californians
 
 called this river the Colorado because of the reddish color of it's waters. It is the Colorado up in the Grand Canyon in Arizona and down past The Needles. But at this time of the year, after passing the mouth of the Gila instead of the red river it becomes the brown river. It actually looks today as if ten per cent of its flow was silt and only ninety per cent water.
 RICHES OF SOIL WONDERFUL
 But the object of this story is to call atten- tion once more, and for perhaps the thou- sandth time, to the riches of the soil along the Colorado on both sides, incident to the depostidg of this mass of debris during all the past ages. Going through the country on the Arizona side of the river, for several miles below Yuma, one encounters the same type of country and soil that is found in the Imperial Valley country around Brawley, Calexico and other points west of the river The fertility of the black prairie soils of Illi- noiS has astOniShed people engaged in agri- culture for nearly one hundred years. The fertility of the valleys of the Nile has been a matter of history for at least 5000 years. Those who are flmilinr with Illinois prairie soil, and those who know what the valley of the Nile is for agriculture. know that this lower Colorado River region surpasses both of them.
 If you ask farmer along this stretch of country if the soil is six feet, bis eyes will open with astOnishment ai your ignorance. He will tell you no one knows whether it is 6O feet, 600 or 6.COO feet deep. It is practically without bottom. It. is SO thoroughly well mixed with sand, disintegrated granite and other rocks that it never breaks. It is as easily worked as a heap of ashes, and re- spends to cultivation in way that is mar veOus.
 CUT SEVEN CROPS YEARLY.
 Arizona has established an experiment station in the heart of this big valley, which | is some twenty-four miles long, and in spots ten to twelve miles wide down on the lower level. The results are wonderful Last week | they were cutting crop of alfalfa on this eX- pcrimental farm, and for seven consecutive | months they will cut succeeding crops. The | only months when the crop Is not cut here are December and January.
 Cotton and tobacco grow with the greatest luxuriance and this rich alluvial soil will be noted in very few years aS the ideal spot in the whole country for dairying, hog raising, the production of poultry and vegetables which one heSitateS to call early or late, as they will be perennial. New potatoes will be produced in the middle of January, tomatoes will be ripe by the first of March, ripe grapes will be gathered in the early days of May, and apri- cots by the middle of the same month. Chic kens and turkeys flourish there in the winter time beyond all experience anywhere else.
 The rainfall is exceedingly light and comes only three or four times in whole winter.