Imperial Valley press., 1909-10-30

there should be no place better To- cated Coal oil, gas and waterpower for electricity exist in exhaustless quantities on all sides. There seems to be no reason why St. Louis could not become a great cotton manufac- turing center'
 All of which is even more applica- ble to San Diego and Los Angeles than to St. Louis. The coast ports need not wait for canals and river improvements to place them in touch with the markets of Central and South America and the Orient. They may obtain raw material from Inn perial valley at low transportation cost. No region has cheaper fuel oil than has Southern California and Los Angeles has in Owens river the great est water power for electricity avail able to any large city on the coast.
 It has been known ever since the first settlement of the valley that the cotton plant grows thriftily in irri- gated soil, but the first definite dem onstration of the suitability of soil and climate to cotton production was made by Ira Aten on his ranch near El Centro in 1906-7. MT. Aten plant ed about half an acre of southern cot ton and allowed the locks to remain in the opened bolls through the win ter. No serious injury was done by wind or rain. The crop of 1907 was allowed to remain on the stocks like wise, and it's condition in the winter convinced visiting Texans that this valley was the best cotton country in f the world
 Aten and his Texas friends talked cotton so convincingly that they in spired the editor of the Press with some of their enthusiasm and the pa per also began talking cotton. In February. 1908, a Los Angeles Cham Der of Commerce excursion was en- tertained in Fl Centro. and Ira Aten and Allen Kelly covered the opera house stage with cotton stocks load ed with opened bolls, 10 show not only the visitors but the people of the valley that the desert was the ideal cotton growing country. A placard told the Angelenos that they were in California Dixie. A month later an other excursion was entertained, and MT. Kelly. as local program commit cotton field with Mir. Aten's crop and raised the curtain on a plantation scene showing four darkies picking cotton and singing California Dixie" to the old air. The pickers were Frank Damsel, Lawrence Hazeltine. A. M Johnson and F. M. Waite in black cotton field. This year he has 50 acres of the best cotton in the valley in partnership with MT Wilkinson.
 The Ten Thousand Club took up the cotton question and called a meet ing of farmers to start a concerted movement toward extensive planting of the weed Texans talked to the farmers and convinced them that the crop would pay better than canta- loupes or other perishable products, but those who had not lived in a cot ton country hesitated to agree to plant cotton until assured that a gin would be provided to prepare the crop for market. At the suggestion of the president of the Ten Thousand Club the editor of the Press-the American Nile Cotton Company was incorpor- ated to import seed and put up a gin, and the announcement that w. F, Holt, George Carter and other re- sponsible citizens had taken that step gave confidence to the farmers and induced them to undertake the eX- pertinent of cotton growing on a com mercial scale,
 As manager of the American Nile Company, J. R. Loftus visited the cot ton states, learned all he could of the industry bought and shipped home a carload of seed and contracted for a gin and compress to be put up at El Centro' and when he returned he planted 25O acres of his Meloland ranch with cotton seed Seed for 1900 acres was distributed to farmers in the valley and from 1000 to 1900