Arizona republican., 1914-11-15

if the trees had never been planted.
 Tn same thing is true of apple trees, except that it takes the apples several years longer to come into full bearing It is not until the sev enthe year that the planter may req sonably hope for a paying crop from his apple trees, although they begin bearing in the fourth or fifth year. But once they get under full head way he can count on about 1000 bushels of apples per acre-and the price of fancy apples. such as are grown in this irrigated district. ranges from $1.00 to $1.25 per bushel. There is one farmer in the Mesilia valley, Mir. J. G. Stuart, who came there from Montana several years ago, whose record is an instructive one Mir Stuart was a cattleman He knew nothing of practical farm ing-nothing of horticulture. His farm embraces 140 acres, of which 30 acres are in bearing apple trees and acres in pears. His apple trees were in full bearing before he acquired them They are now, Tn fact. about twenty years old. He has just harvested his apple crop for this year. and averaged a little better than 1000 bushels per acre.
 It should be added that all this is being done, and that 60,000 acres are being and have been successfully farmed for some years not under the waters provided by the big dam at Elephant Butte but by means of simple community ditches. These | smaller projects. however. have fur nished a mass of valuable data and practical demonstration of the po- tentialities of these alluvial lands; and once the great project is finally launched and the life giving stream | is spread abroad over the 1S0,000 waiting acres, there is no room for questioning results
 In fact the United States govern ment is not in the habit of making 1 $7 100000 experiments. It was not because Uncle Sam hoped for cer- | tain possible results, but because he was certain of those results, that | he undertook to spend that vast sum 
 at Elephant Butte and the Project. He had more, too. than the example of the scattering settlers who have been for decades coaxing thin streams of the waters of the Rio Grande upon their little farms and turning them into gardens such IS | the dwelers along the lower Nile might envy. He had the example of | the ancient Pueblo Indians who for centuries before the first white man ever set foot upon New Mexican or | Texan soil had irrigated the lands l in these alluvial valleys and made them a paradise of fecundity. The | question mark has long since been l erased from the Rio Grande valley 1 proposition.
 | The investor who buys lands irri- gable under the Elephant Butte pro- | ject is not taking any risk. The lands themselves are as fertile as | alluvial soil can be-rich to excess in all the elements of plant life | They are blessed with an almost ! perpetual flood of sunshine. Tn,
 only thing which has hitherto beer
 lacking to turn them into a yer; 1 paradise of productiveness is the
 presence of abundant water; an(
 this lack is now being supplied by
 the work of the most expert engh
 eering force on earth backed by the
 almost limitless resources of tn,
 United States government.
 Furthermore, those who settle 1T
 this section are assured of the mos
 agreeable and bracing climate in al
 the Americas. With an elevation
 averaging close to 4.0O0 feet abov,
 sea level, with an average of g!
 temperature never too hot nor tot
 cold, the Rio Grande valley in New
 Mexico and western Texas is idea in all that makes for human comfor
 and well being.
 E But the tale is not yet told. Witt
 every acre of this soil the purchase
 acquires a share of stock in the Ele
 phant Butte Water Users Associa
 tion or the Fl Paso Water Users
 Association. This entities him t
 three acre feet of water annually oI
 each acre of land he acquires-o
 water enough to cover his entir
 tract three feet deep. Under a lav
 recently passed by the governmnt
 he is now given five years with
 vry low water rate to pay, and i
 then given fifteen years more to fin
 sh paving his water rate, which to
 tals $40 per acre. At the end D
 that period he will own a pro rat
 share in the dam itself, and m tn
 mammoth hydro electric plant in
 stalled there by Uncle Same; an,