The Lexington advertiser., 1909-06-25
gions, comprising those states and ter
Map of
CASEY SUBDIVISION,
Lexington, Miss.

gions, comprising those states and ter
ritories where agriculture is dependen
almost entirely upon the artificial ap
| plication of water to the land; the
semi-arid regions, comprising parts oi
those states lying midway between the
Rocky mountains and the Misslssippi
tain that irrigation is necessary except
during years of unusual precipitation
the rice producing states, comprising
parts of Texas and Louisiana and Ger.
tain counties in :he Carolinas and
Georgia; and the humid states, repre-.
sented by several of the New England,
Middle Atlantic and Gulf states, in
which irrigation is practiced to linn
tied extent.
A piece of land half the size OF
plantations of several years ago, now
we'll irrigated and drained, produces
as much as one of those large planta-
tions and does not require any more
than half the work that it did for
them.
Deserts which our forefathers
thought worthless. have been irrigated
and ale now producing fine crops.
In April, 1908, notice was pub
lished that one million acres of land
in SouthernAlberta were open to home
seekers. This land recently belonged
to the Dominion of Canada but passed
to the Canadian Pacific Railway Com
pany through an agreement under
which the company was to construct
and maintain an irrigation system, and
the government was to furnish water
at a nominal rate This piece of land
is one hundred aud fifty miles long and
forty miles wide. The water used to
irrigate is obtained from the Bow riv-
er at point two miles below Calgary,
and is distributed through system OF
main and branch canals.
A forty acre farm 10 not the smallest
that can be worked with profit, for
irrigation applied to SO rich a soil as
this produces from three to five times
the average crop. Irrigation is being
carried on in the Imperial Valley in
California. This valley occupies the
greater portion of what was formerly
the Colorado Desert. The desert is
great basin one hundred and ten miles
long and forty miles wide. The soil is
very fertile, and is of several grades,
ranging from loose soil, which takes
water freely to hard soil, which wa
ter penetrates very slowly. The eli
mate is one of great heat and dryness,
and the summers are long.
The absolute necessity of irrigation
in this valley is shown by the fact that
no one dared to make it his place OF
habitation before irrigation was intro
duced.
The growing season in this valley is
practically twelve months in duration,
and this, together with the fertile soil
and hot climate, produces exceptional
yields. 1t has already been proved
that an unusually large variety of
crops and industries are profitable, and
that few crops are unsuited to it, but
the limitations are not known.
The Bitter Root valley is about the
most productive of the irrigated lands.
The value OF the land increases each
year and for this facr an exact cost per
acre can not be given, but we can say
that the land is worth much more than
five hundred dollars an acre.
1t can be shown that the cost would
be rather high by the fact that an acre
of apples or pears nets the grower from
two hundred to eighteen hundred dol
lars, and grains pay ten per cent in