The La Jara chronicle. (La Jara, Conejos County, Colo.) 1896-19??, 1911-04-21

/ eAA oAAhGS 81 ehN ~ 'NosNA - ~-~t
of Monte Vista. They have al
ready reclaimed about 5000 acres
southeast of Monte Vista which
we understand has recently been
sold for $75 per acre-at least
three times as much as the specu-
lative value before drainage. The
Sylvesters are now draining a
tract of about equal extent, be-
ginning two miles west of Hoop
err.
The latest and largest and
probably tn" most far reaching
enterprise along this line is the
one undertaken by the Chas. E.
Gibson interests of Boston, Mass,
and locally represented by Chas.
A. Robinson of Denver and Roy
S: Shahan of Alamosa. They are
now draining a tract of 10000
acres northwest of Hooper;
building twenty-three miles of
bitches six feet deep, six feet
wide on the bottom and twenty
four feet wide on top. They are
clearing the land of brush and
blowing it, and promise to have
it all growing crops during the
season of 1912. Both this tract
and the later tract of the Syl-
vesters are in the San Luis Val
ley irrigation district which com
prises about $4,000 acres and has
an appropriation of 1900 second
feet of water, also reser-
voir now under construction with
a capacity of about $4,000 acre
feet.
This, in our opinion, is the most
ideal condition that can obtain
for sarming: direct flow water
from the river; storage water to
use when the streams are dry
or water is scarce; drainage by
which perpetual water is held
about six feet below the surface,
thus constantly supplying some
moisture through capillary attrac-
ton, and yet far enough away
from the surface to admit of the
mineral salts-commonly called
alkali-to be distributed through
six feet of ground instead of all
being concentrated in the top
onehalf to one foot of the sur
face where it must destroy vege-
tation rather than promote it as
is its proper function.
The reason farmers are COM
PEELED to use soil fertilizers in
rainy countries is because all
these mineral salts are washed
out of the soil by the abundance
of rain. Here, we have these
necessary mineral elements in
super abundance and all we have
to do to make them available on
the lands where they now pre-
vent vegetation, is to lower the
water table by drainage and thus
work them back into the soil
by flooding the lands with irriga-
ton water. The water percolating
through the soil to the water
table five or six feet below, car
ries these salts down, distribut
ing them where they can be TAX
en- up by the plant roots, there
by furnishing the substance the
plant requires and adding to the
abundant yields that are every
where manifest in irrigated coun-
tries over the yields where rain
is depended upon.
We earnestly hope the citizens
of Conejos county will soon or
ganize and drain the vast area
to the southwest of Alamosa, and
that they will also secure some
of the reservoirs now built, or
that are in the process of build
ing, before the water they are en-
pounding is applied to other
lands. There is no doubt but that
drainage will increase the amount
of water necessary for thorough
and successful irrigation and the
added acreage cultivated will re
quire still more water. 1t is mere
ly the part of wisdom to enter
upon a campaign of drainage at
once, and we must recognize the
equal necessity of providing at
| the Same time the extra water