The Arizona sentinel., 1910-08-25

ably. Likewise will scores of old mines that have been aban- doned be placed on a basis where profitable operation will be pos sible. In no place in the world is the Improvement in mining methods felt more than in Ari- zOna and the economy of these methods is regularly rejuvenat ing mines that were long ago given up as unprotitable. Many q million is being made in work. ing over the tailings. of mines at Nhich unscientific methods all lowed much of the gold to esca pc in the milling.
 Coal mining in Arizona has never received any consideration Copper and the precious metals have always had the call and the time has probably not yet arriv- ed when coal mining would nat urally develop. But great portion of the northern half of the new state is underlaid with 1 it. There are great possibilities in such conditions. The future wealth of them is matter of conjecture, as 1t is in many Of the latent resources of Arizona Arizona is not exclusively a mining state. There are already some five hundred thousand acres of land under irrigation. The largest tract of this land is in the Salt River valley, of which Phoenix is the center. This land is now selling at $2Go and $500 an acre and Is an excellent in vestment at those prices. The Arizona oranges are the first on the eastern market and bring prices that are far ahead of those from either Florida or Cal ifOrnia. This is not merely be- cause they are earlier, but be- cause they are better. Last year Salt River valley shipped one hundred and twenty five car loads of cantaloupes to the east ern markets, these bringing fancy prices because of quality and the first call iu the early market.
 Fruits, sugar beets, grain and many other crops are important to Arizona, but the crop of them all is alfalfa. Here is the yield so prodigious as to be beyond the belief of the eastern farmer, When 1 say that two tons to the acre are grown and that six crops are cut in a year, making twelve tons to the acre of the best hay in the world, the figures sound unreal. But this estimate is decidedly conservative. The hay brings from ten to fifteen dollars a ton. The returns are such that the land IS cheap at i S3O0Nn acre. The result of this possibility of large returns from the land leads to the cutting up 1 the tracts into very small farms and, therefore, a densely settled community. In the end these irrigated lands will be cut up in to ten and twenty acre tracts, with a home on each one, and these valleys will be almost con- tinuous villages, with all the ad- vantages that such conditions carry with them and the elimina- tion of that isolation which is the bane of farm life. The Roose welt reservoir is just being completed and will furnish all the water needed for" irrigation in Salt River valley.
 The bagpna dam at Yuma is also completed and brings into production another region which will yield vast quantities of or- anges, lemons, miscellaneous fruits and vegeta bles, which pro ducts will reach the market ear Her than those of any other sec tion of the whole country. There are smaller irrigation projects in other sections and many others that have not yet been seriously considered, but which will some day be added to reclamation ac- 7 complishments.
 The ranges of Arizona still continue to yield great numbers of cattle and sheep and will do