Arizona republican., 1909-12-25
COTTON GROWING BY
 sAcAT0N INDIANS
They Have Apparently Made a Sue
 cess of the Business.

H. M. Lewis .has returned from test pump for the purpose of test ing the wells to be sunk by the Avondale- company. west of the Agua Fria river He got the pump and the well drilling outfit is on the ground ready to begin work on the arrival of the casing. which will prob ably be this morning. But Avondaie is not the subject of this story. Its text is cotton. and Sacaton. and what MT. Lewis saw there.
 He said he stumbled on a gin mill that is. a cotton gin mill for the other sort does not flourish on the Indian reservations-and was sur prised to see it's fine product and ruminate on what IL means to the Indians Also to the white men.
 Mir Lewis said he did not secure any accurate figures as to the prod uct. but would judge that the Indians. under the supervision of the experi- ment farm at Sacaton. had about ten acres of cotton this year He was told it returned about a bale to the acre. or 800 pounds. It is of the Egyptian variety. and did splendidly. An offer of 25 cents pound has been made for the cotton already. and as it gins beautifully and is a long staple, it is bound to command the highest price in the market.
 Five hundred pounds to the acre means s125 in cash. a pretty good revenue for an Indian. It is esti- mated that one man and a mule can raise from thirty to forty acres of cotton in this country. up to the picking point. when extra labor will have to be employed. When white man figures on the cost of cultiva- tion, and the investment for his land. and the ginning cost, and the picking cost, and all the incidentals, it ought still to prove a good crop. Not so much in net profits per acre. per haps, as fruits, berries and other products of intensive farming. but there is the saving of time one has for returns. His cotton trees" do not have to grow several years be- fore they bear fruit. He can raise a crop every year from the start, and while there may be no more profit in the crop than in alfalfa, grains, pasture, beets or some other crops, and even less, it adds to the diver sity of products and the more strings the Arizona farmers have to their bows the better for the country.
 But for the Indians the cotton business at this time looks like high road to prosperity. from MT. Lewis viewpoint. There will doubt less be official utterances on the subject a little later. by the men who have charge of the experiment station or the bureau with which they are connected, but to an out slider the surface facts look fine. The Indians have some of the finest land in the world, and cotton is a crop they can be taught to raise great deal better than some others that demand the knowledge of a skilled grower, like fruits and berries. or the Indians can be made to do the work under the direction of skilled growers. Then when extra work is required Indian labor can be had much cheaper than white labor. In fact, much of the time if the Indians were not in the cotton field they would not be working at all. If the government furnishes the gin and the skilled labor. and the Indians have the land and the water fur nished by the government, it would appear that those in the cotton busi-