Rocky Ford enterprise., 1910-08-05
VALLEY OF CONTENT.
Pleases Visiting Newspaper Man
From Kansas.

Upon his return home last Tues
day, c. r. Davies. publisher of the
Concordia Daily Kansan. gave his
readers the following good dope
about the Arkansas. Valley:
AFTER two weeks stay in Colorado.
the editor and Mrs. Davies returned
home yestcrday-glad we went and
glad to get home again.
OF course the main object of the
trip west was to visit our daughter.
Mrs. Henry Lague Jr. and family.
who live at La Junta. Their many
friends here will be glad to know that
they arc all we'll and doing very well
so arc Mr.. and Mrs. Charles Froe-
Itch. who recently moved to the same
place from here.
la Junta is not q summer resort.
II is a prosperous town Of about sew
en- thousand people. situated in the
Arkansas Valley, about sixty or sew
cnty miles east of the mountains at
Pueblo. 1t is primarily a railroad
town. where the Denver and coast
lines OF the Santa Fe railroad form
a junction. Large shops are located
here and the railroad business is
enormous.
Ten miles west. farther up the val
ley, is Rocky Ford. where the most
famous cantaioupes in the world are
raised. These wonderful cantaloupes
are raised, however, for fifty or sixty
miles along the valley, the same soil
and the same conditions for their pro-
duction existing as obtain in the i'm
mediate vicinity of the town that gave
them their name and identity in the
market.
Nothino grows out of the soil there.
except cactus and sage brush-bar-
ring. Of course. some buffalo grass on
the range, which starts and grows in
the early spring and cures on the
ground. and provides nutritious forage
for stock during the summcr-unless
it be irrigated.
Land iavorably located as to mar
ket, near the towns, and under n good
water right. affording plenty of wat
cr for irrigating purposes, is worth
all the way from $4,000 to 500. 90 an
acre. It's worth it. too.
Mr.. Laguc was kind enough to take
us fer an automobile trip all through
the city and country tributary of
Rocky Ford. 1t is one of the finest
examples of intensive farming to be
seen in this country. Every foot Of
land that is under the ditch is made
to produce something. 1t is an ideal
fruit country. At least fifty per cent
Of the apples that come on the trees
in the spring must be taken off, to
protect the trees from destruction by
overlooking. Cherries and plums arc
exceedingly prolific and bring the
highest prices in the markct-and
they are shipped to the uttermost cor
ncrs of the country.
The staple crops though, 1t seems
to us. are alfalfa. sugar bcets and the
famous cantaloupcs. The stories they
tell of the yield of these crops arc,
something like our stories of Kansas
wheat and corn.
We do not hesitate to say that we
greatly admire the pioneers of that
country who have pitted their cour-
age, their brains. and their labor
against the adverse conditions Of the
great American desert and have made
the broad Arkansas Valley give up
its millions of dollars as the rose.
from Coolidge in Kansas almost to its
source at the foot of the snow-clad
peaks of the Rocky Mountain range
The editor of the Kansan fully ap-
preciatcs what has been done in the
development Of that country. too. as