Arizona republican., 1911-09-17
WORKING TO INCREASE WORLDS FOOD SUPPLY

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 There need be no fear of lack in the nations food supply, even should We were such a thing possible-double our population within the next genera tion. Growth may go forward by leaps and bounds. and with it the demand for food-stuffs, yet pro duction will keep pace with demand. The agricultural awakening which first made itself felt about five years ago in the west has within the last few months taken a sudden impetus. Three years ago the rush of settlers to the Southwest reached its height on the wave of "dry farming" move ment that promised to make the semi arid regions bring forth rich yields of grain. The anti-climax came in 1910, after two years of exceedingly severe drouth. during which thousands of the new settlers left their farms and re turned east, most of them, however, only after committing on their home steads and wisely securing a govern ment patent thereon.
 Dry farming, or the science of agriculture under scant rainfall, made good where the farmer followed direc- tions, but thousands failed because they did not heed the advice of eX- perts. These failures have turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the high plains regions. because the advo- cates of dry farming" were forced to take a broader path. Conservation of moisture in the soil is at the bottom of their theory and practice. Many thought of moisture only as direct rainfall upon their cultivated acres. But there is a limit to rainfall under which no plan of storage and cultiva- ton will avail to produce crops. The season of 1910 went under the limit in many of the newly settled regions of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and western Kansas, and, following a year like 1909, which also was dry, there was no moisture in reserve in the soil.
 Discouragement and disaster follow ed, but the wise heads among the az ricultural pioneers of the high plains declined to stay whipped. They saw great light and from the dawning thereof there has come about an ideal union of dry farming" and irrigation development all over the Southwest, that promises to reclaim literally mill ions of acres of land hitherto unculu- vated, and make other millions of ac- res, now scantily yielding, richly pro- ductive.
 This is to be accomplished by stor- age of the sorm waters, and utilization of the underflow by pumping and the development of artesian belts, the new est of which is located in southwest Kansas( overlapping the borders of Colorado into Baca county, the south east corner of that state.
 An investigation of this water devel- opment has just been made by the az ricultural department of the Rock Is- land lines and the results are little less than astonishing. It developed that man has overlooked two of the most important sources of weaith-the wa ter that falls in the severe storms of the high plateaus and that form the disappearing streams of the desert re- zion and the underflow rivers of the plains. The inquiry covered eastern Colorado, western Kansas. more than half of New Mexico and the Panhandle region of Oklahoma and Texas The conclusion reached by Prof. H. M. Cott- rell, agricultural commissioner for the Rock Island lines, is that a million acres of land on the company's lines alone will soon be reclaimed by one or the other processes of water conserva- tion heretofore mentioned.
 Among the storm water storage pro- positions which were investigated was that known as the Pajarto scheme. in Quay county, New Mexico, by means of which between 20,000 and 30,000 acres of land around Tucumcari will be watered Capital is prepared to swing this project, which involves the expenditure of half a million dollars for construction work, and will re- claim land that is now being but poor ly farmed.
 At Logan, in Union county. New Mexico. the dry land farmers have formed an irrigation district that will conserve the waters of Ute creek, a branch of the Canadian. for the pur- pose of irrigating 3O,O0O acres of fertile land This is but the foreunner of a scheme to back up the waters of the Canadian river at a point where the gorge through which it runs is but 125 feet wide at the top, providing an