Imperial Valley press., 1908-03-21
ROOM FOR A MILLION WEALTH PRODUCERS IN CALIFORNIA;
 VALLEY OF THE NILE.
PROMISED LAND IS FOUND
Some of the Things Seen by An Editor Who Came to Imperial Valley With the Business Men of Los Angeles, Who Believe In Reciprocity.

Commerce excursionists to Imperial Valley last month was Henry w.. Kruckeberg, editor of the Rural Cali fornian, who wrote for his paper a description of what the excursionists saw in "Californias Valley of the Nile" This is, in part, what editor Kruckeberg wrote:
 The Land of Promise.
 The Imperial Valley is a veritable Island Empire situated in the extreme southern portion of the state, which on first vision makes you think of the great San Joaquin Valley. Level as a billiard table with just enough slope to prevent irTigating water running uphill, it is flanked on two sides with , foothills banked by still greater ele- vations or mountains. From north to south the sky line settles in the hOri- zon. giving to the whole an idea of a limitless expanse at once immense and grand. For the most part the landscape would be monotonous but for the varied hues of color which stamp the arid deserts with an indi- viduality strikingly their own. The vegetation has it's special interest for the botanist, the nature student but for the more prosiac with the in- terrosation, What is there in it?'' it has quite another significance. To this bevy of running birds there was a good deal ''in it. which was not a feast of reason and flow of soul The was lin it. a healthy strain of fellowship founded on a desire to spy out the promised land, hail it's advan- tages to the four winds of heaven, and to help the men and women with red corpuscles in their blood to de velop the latent energies of it's soil and exploit it's products in the atmos- phere not only for the forge and farm, but in the corridors of finance and in the atmosphere of the world smar- ket places. In it's last analysis, we only receive in proportion as we give The business men of Los An geles believe in reciprocity and they went into that virgin empire with the laudible ambition to give it aid in the development of it's resources in soil products and to hook it to the Los Angeles business heart with bands of good will stronger than hooks of steel. Did they succeed? Ask the people they met in Californias Valley of the Nile.
 The Soil and Products.
 The geographical area in square miles, the length and width of the Imperial Valley, are bits of data l did not learn in the turmoil of things doing and going to be done. At any rate it did not bother anybody-there was room for million of people, so why stop to calculate things with a tape line? Everybody was too busy telling everybodyelse what the soil would produce. And allowing for the fact that the ground is rich after it has received it's supply of irrigation water in all the elements of plant food that will grow healthy vegeta- tion, why should a handful of people be troubled about areas and vera lots with all outdoors to graft on and water to burn? For remember, the soil of the entire valley is sediment left by the overflow of the Colorado river over a period that Darwin or a Huxley would term short period" when speaking as geologists, but when reckoned by a grower of Imperial canta- loupes it must have been about seven million, seven thousand years, seven months and seven days. At any rate when married to King Water it does the businss." In character it varies somewhat; portions being sandy and loose, while here and there it is quite heavy, strongly suggestive of adobe. In depth it is a wonder.
 Golden Sunshine.
 It is sunshine, combined with mois ture that produces rapid growth and early ripening of fruit and vegetables Rob the Imperial Valley of its hot