The Parker post. (Parker, Ariz.) 1910-1918, 1913-01-25
VAST FARM
RESOURCES
ARIZONA is AGRICULTURAL 6 mi
TION AT PARKER ACREAGE
WILL BE GREATLY INCREASED.

du0du, the ucN0lOpIuouIl III b''SiL' ~
sources that the ordinary observer
could scarcely recognize as resourc-
es at all, the writer, i'm another field
of journalistic activity, has been
calling attention to Arizona as an
agricultural empire, for the last ten
years. Neither the eye of prophet
nor the words of an agricultural ex-
pert are longer needed The en-
pire has arrived though it is yet
small domain compared with what it
will be twenty-five years hence.
Agriculture in Arizona has seem
ed trifling i'm the past for a great
many reasons but the most notable
one is that so few people have any
adequate conception of the vastness
of its area while everybody knows
that the major part of the state dis
mountain and high mesa land, unsrlit-
ed to farming. Let the readers first
thought of Arizona be that it lis as
large aus all of New England and
the great state of New York combin-
ed, the seven states that iii a political
way have almost ruled the country,
when they were working in harmony.
1t is larger than New York and Hi
nois, two of the greatest farming
states of a generation ago, and nearly
half as large as Kansas with a farm
record that has been heralded around
the world.
Another reason why the farming i'm
dustry has been slow in claiming at
tention is that most states have been
primarily builded ON agriculture and
until the present day untitled land has
been the commonest resource of most
of them. People saw no reason for
Drawing pioneer hardships, merely for
a chance to farm They neither knew
nor cared to know, that Arizona was
a farmers paradise.
The State in It's making was found
ed ON those other things lit could sup.
ply, that the world has needed most.
Mining was foremost and Arizona has
crept to the top of the hist OF world
famed copper fields and ranks we'll
for its gold, silver and other metals,
while most every metal known to
science has been found in some guam
tity.
It's remarkable range resources
spring into prominence through sthe
demand for beef, mutton and wool
and now its forestry interests are the
object of greedy eyes, due to the
growing demand for lumber
When the attention of the world
was finally arrested and turned to-
ward agriculture, both capitalist and
homeseeker began to realize that the
best, safest and most enduring re-
sources of all had been overlooked.
Another potent reason why these
lands have remained untitled; is that
human genius responding to human
necessity had not then brought into
successful use, irrigation and cOnser-
walton, intensive farming and dry
farming, which since applied to Ari-
zona have transformed barren acres
to fields of productivity The geog-
raphies We're not far wrong when they
stated thirty-five years ago that Ari-
zona had practically no agricultural
land, which classification at that time
meant crop raising by natural rain
fall. They were in error perhaps to
the extent of a million acres, which
had not then been mapped or eX-
tive, though not through lack of wa
ter Their handicaps are, locations
remote from railroads, or ON railroad
lines lacking competition; competi-
tion that cannot come in full, until
preceded by development.
1t would be only a guess to ven
ture how large an acreage in Ami
zona will one day be devoted to dry
farming, but with the thousands of
mountain branches, the mesa above
the irrigated valleys. the wonderful
Sulphur Springs valley the vast
plain westward from Wickenburg to
the Colorado river, it would seem aus
though two million acres might be
the hope of very short time in the
future.
Admittedly this is a glimpse Of the
empire of the future Today the Salt
River valley and its encircling mesas,
row represent some 300 900 acres of
farm land, Watered either by the
government or by private enterprise.
The Yuma project is designed to
water about 10000 acres. The Gila
the Casa Grande, the Buckeye,