The Arizona sentinel., 1909-11-25
POSSIBILITIES 0F YUMA
 RE6IOh UNEMPLOYED The SOiI Simply Marvellous in Its
 PredGCtNeneSS And the Climate is lnt0xiCatingly
 SafabrioaS
BY GEORGE N. BURTON, in IoS Angeles Times.

 century since the United States of America sprarg, so to speak. like Pallas At1ene rom the brain of love, a completely armed ad- ditiou to the family CT nations. It IS put little -ver half a century since California be- came a part of these United States Of America, and less than a generation since the settle ynent of the Great Southwest began.
 In all the I25 years since the Republic was founded. also in the half century since Cali korria became one of the States of the Union. and during every year of the last thirty, 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 undevelop- ed resources of the Great Southwest might reasonably he expected to become. We have Iot reached the depths of this great ocean of wealth with our plummet line yet
 In a residence offorty years on the Coast thc writer thought he knew little about what there Is on the Coast, and as most CT these years have been spent i'll and around Los Angeles, he naturally had little con- ceit that he was pretty well acquainted wlIh the Great Southwest. Last week trip to the
 
 hlm feel as a tenderfoot who had come in on the last train. New to him, this wonderful negion and it's possibilities are pretty well Known to 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 when. thegevernnent is putting in the great Laguna dam, at the confluence or the Gila and Colorado Rivers. 1t is twelve miles from Yuma down the river to the Mexican boundry line on the Arizona side of the rlVer At one point. just below Yama, the interna- uonal boundry line runs up along the river which there takes westerly trend and from Yuma to Mexico is only a few miles.
 ONCE A MIGHTY STREAM.
 Ages ago when tBe mountain ranges of Arizona and California lowered toward the stars at least twice as high as they do. now, rains were very freduent and came down 1n torrcntial volumes all along these mountain ridges The Colorado River in these past ages was a 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 fwhere the river now runs. As the erosion of winds and storms landslides and glaciers wore down the mountain ridges year by year, tine great river carried down Q, vast amount of silt erosion from the rocks full of phos' plates, Hines and dlsintergrated granites, as we'll as the vegetation along its banks; and this was all deposited ia what are HOW tbe sinks -ofItlne. Colorado
 As the rneuss4saisn tOas. were worn down. tas FsIns became less feaEsena aSsd less i'm SaaIsas but tlss-esosiosu cf rocks azaG TveT SnssSts Sfa trees and vegetable nsouiG tegG fss0zaH fh' Banks still came down and settled iase tAe bottom of the great inland lake. This geogical process went on from age to age to cur time, leaving the Colorado at Yuma a stream bout half l mile wide and being at the present lime about twenty feet deep i1 the deepest portion.
 It is not necessary to remind Californians that the Spanish missionaries and explorers called this river the Colorado because of the reddish color of it's waters 1t is the Colorado upin the Grand Canyon in Arizona and down past The Needles. But at this time ol tlie year, after passing the mouth of the Glla instead of the red river it becomes the brown river Ii actually looks today as if ten pel cent ofits flow was silt and only ninety pei 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 alonl the Colorado on both sides, incident to thu depositjdg of this mass of debris during al the past ages. Going through the countr, on the Arizona side of the river, for severa miles below Yuma, one encounters the sam type Of country and soil that is found in tn Imperial Valley country around Brawley Calexico and other poin ts west of the rive The fertility or the black prairie soils of Hi nois has an an.onished people engaged in agri culture for nearly one hundred years. Tn fertility of the valleys Of the Nile has been matter of history for at least COCO years. Thos who are familinr with Illinois prairie soil and those who know what the valley of tn Nile is for agriculture. know that this lowe Colorado River region surpasses both ofthem
 ifyou ask farmer along this stretch C country if the soil is six feet, his eyes wi open with astonishment ai your ignorance He will tell you no one knows whether 1t 50 feet 600 or 5000 feet deep. 1t is practicall without bottom. It is SD thoroughly we mixed with sand, disintegrated granite an other rocks that it never breaks. It is d easily worked as a heap of ashes, and II spends to cultivation in a way that is ma vicious.
 CUT SEVEN CROPS YEARLY.
 Arizona has established an eXperimeT station in the heart of this big valley, whic Is some twenty-four miles long, and in spo Zen to twelve miles wide, down on the lowe 3evei. The results are wonderful. Last wee they were cutting a crcp of alfalfa on this e, periTaental farm, and for seven consecuti' months they will cut succeeding crops IT only months when the crop IS not cut here al December and January.
 Cottoa and tobacco grow with the greate Iuxuriance, and this rich alluvial soil will noted in a very few years as the ideal spot the whole country for dairying, hog raisin the production of poultry and vegetables whi' one hesitates to call early or late. as they VI be perennial. New potatoes will be produe in the middle of January, tomatoes will ripe by the first of March, ripe grapes will
 gathered in the early days of May, and ap cots by the middle of the same month. Ch kens and turkeys flourish there in the wint time beyond all experience anywhere else.
 The rainfall is exceedingly light and com only three or four times in a whole wintt With an abundance of green alfalfa and veg' able the dry and not overheated elima prevailing in the winter months, chickens a free from the disease that make their raisi difficult elsewhere There Is no spot in Sout ern Illinois or Missouri so adapted to the pl duction of corn as this valley along the Colol do River. With alfalfa and corn, the butt