The daily sentinel., 1909-03-02
ENDORSES pEcos VALLEY.
Rich Body of Land and Astonishingly
FERTILE, Says Coburn.
(From the X. c. STAR

| tFrOm the *. G.. Star.
Topeka. .Sov. 27.-t, d. Coburn,
secretary of the Kansas state board
of agriculture, has just returned from
trip through part of Texas. While
away Mr.. Coburn was in the lower
Pecos Valley. He visited Pecos, Ward
and Reeves counties. He was i'm
pressed with all the country to which
he went, especially Pecos county. In
speaking of his trip this morning Mr..
Coburn said:
The country looked at especially
was the lower Pecos Valley, in Pecos,
Reeves and Ward counties, Texas,
and more particularly Pecos county,
now about to be opened up to settle
ment 1t will be made directly tri-
butary to Kansas City by the Orient
railway. The best of the lands here
astonishingly Nrtile, are certainly
fayorably situated for irrigation.
They are being disposed of at prices
and on terms attracting purchasers
from all parts of the Union. Land
seekers are met on every trail, and
they are so numerous that there is
difficulty in obtaining the cross-coun-
try transportation necessary for in
specting the lands.
Buyers Not All Tenderfeet.
Every stranger one meets is talk
ing land, section lines. bitches, irri-
CATION and location, and they are not
all tenderfeet from the East for irri-
cation territory in other states is fur
nishing its full quota of well posted
prospective settlers. attracted by the
mild winter climate, the assurance of
abundant ditch water, the fertility of
the soil, the ease with which it can be
put under cultivation. and the pro-
digious alfalfa, fruit and other crops
the more favored parts produce when
judiciously treated. To tell the truth,
people who ought to settle in Kansas
are flocking there by thousands. In
Kansas there are improvements, facil
tiles, advantages and conveniences
that it will take a full generation to
provide in Western Texas. however
enterprising its settlers may be.
Much of this irrigable land has
large proportion of gypsum in it
which, as everyone knows. is great
fertilizing element, and thousands of
tons of it are bought and used else
where under the name of land plas-
ter to restore, at much expense. de-
pleted soils and rundown farms.
These gypsum deposits also afford an
abundance of cheap building mater
ial, used as plaster, or nodded into
blocks of any size or form. with
which houses or other buildings can
be constructed. The structures of
this material are of dazzling white
ness.
A Big Natural Reservoir.
"A somewhat remarkable circum-
stance in connection with tract of
$4,000 acres of irrigable Pecos coun-
ty lands owned by the Orient Railway
company near the Pecos river, is the
finding at the northwest extremity
an ancient lake bed or reservoir,
about two miles square. capable of
holding sixteen or seventeen feet of
water. This will be available to the
land owners as a reserve supply at
any time there should be scarcity of
water in the river. Ordinarily this
will not be needed, hui its being there
amounts to a sort Of double guar
antee to land owners along its bitches
against insufficient water at times of
growing season when water supply
is all important.
Completion of the Orient railroad
will amount to new birth to the
vast Western and Southwestern Tex
as territory and afford n direct out
let to Kansas City and Eastern mar
kets for the products of a fertile en-
pire heretofore isolated and arid.
Understand me, there are millions of
acres of equally fertile land in Texas
that for lack of water cannot. so far
as | am able to see, be profitable for
agriculture, but it is being thorough
ly demonstrated that those consider
able areas where river. spring or
artesian water can be had, are cap
able of great results Those who get
there ahead of the railroads and the
resulting rush will reap the benefits
of the earlier low prices and the ad-
vances that inevitably come later.
LAS in Kansas there undoubtedly
are presented in some parts of the
rexas county possibilities and fuJ
ture such as few scarcely conceive of
in dreams"
The next excursion leaves March
18th See the H. J Gray Realty Co.,
337 Main street.
h44o,4;,. V,;~h+st