Imperial Valley press., 1911-11-24

Following is the second article by
Editor R. C. HARRISON of the San
Bernardino' Sun on his visit to this
| valley:
How large do You suppose the I'm
perial Valley is? And by that, l mean
the arabic part of it. the lands that
are already or are to be brought under
cultivation. For it is not as wide as
the desert. In the early days of its
development, we were wont to be told
that all of the space between the foot
hills on the east side of the range and
the Colorado river would ultimately
be within the realm of this modern
Egypt Not so. Not by any means In
fact, according to present calculations,
been made to bud and blossom, there
will still be miles of desert on the west
and the north and east-there will be
/ just the delightful oasis between the
reaches of the waste, although this is
likely to be the greatest source of food
supply for Southern California that it
will have
| The highest estimate | could obtain
on the number of acres of land to be
ultimately brought under cultivation
by means of the Imperial water system
is 100000. Already 225,000 acres are
under water and most of them under
cultivation. And 100000 acres could
be laid out in a rectangle less than 25
miles square! Yet from that compar-
atively diminutive district, not nearly
all of which is under cultivation and
very little of it under the intensive
cultivation that must come, the output
of hogs and cattle and horses and
poultry, of melons and grapes. of but
ter and cream and eggs, of cotton and
grain and hay, is almost fabulous. And
from that 25 miles square, in my be-
lief, is to come the beef and the pork
and the poultry, the dairy products and
eggs. and perhaps much of the other
food products that are to feed the mil
Iions-mark the words. the millions
whose homes are to be in Southern
California.
And that is why the stock ranches
there appeal so much to me. We rode
perhaps better than 100 miles back
and forth across the valley, never for
an instant out of sight of the vast
herds of cattle, bands of horses and
countless fields fairly alive with the
swine. all living in fat contentment,
while trainload after trainlOad OF the
output of these ranches almost daily
find their way to the markets of the
coast
And profitable? Many San Bernar-
dino people know Nels Jacobson, who
went to the valley something like ten
years ago, poor in health and not rich
in purse Today he is perhaps the
biggest individual land owner Operat-
ing his own property, and his 500
acres of land are worth 100000 in
coin of the realm while the'horses and
cattle and hogs in his fields are easily
worth $4,000 more. Though l did not
see his books. there is good reason to
believe that this ranch pays it's owner
not far from 20,per cent per annum on
that investment of s15O,0OO And the
valley produced the investment.
We visited the Jacobson ranch, ana
Just as a sample intimation of the
scale on which it is farmed, they
shipped out three cars of hogs that
day, and Jacobson said ne could not
notice that any were gone from his
! feeding pens. He shipped 19 cars of
hogs last year, to say nothing of his
output of cattle and horses.
district a paragraph or two back, but
there is possibility that might double
it. And this is something of an open
secret in the valley, for they are al
most confident that before many
moons the boundary of California will
have been moved far to the south. In
deed, they believe that the die is al
ready cast, and that Lower California
is to become the territory of the Unit
ed States. If that happens, the irrig-
able and arabic territory of the I'm
perial Valley will be almost exactly
doubled. They say it must be the out
come The water bitches run through
Mexican territory. The new railroad
wends it's right of way back and forth
across the border. and above and be-
yond all this, they have information