El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1915-02-06
VALLEYS FORM AN
EMPIRE IN
RICHNESS
Farming Opportunities I'm
equaLed in Ell Paso Under
the NeD Project
THOUSANDS OF
ACRES OF LAND
Al Rich in Soil and Al
ready PrOOed Valuable
For PrOductiOeness.
By JOHN LEIsK TAFT

By JOHN LETsFx TAM
NNCE more Uncle Sam has waved
- ms magic wand over waste
places and they are beginning
20 blossom as the rose. This time if
IS IN southeastern New Mexico and
northwestern Texas.
II Is what is known as the E1enban+
Suite reclamation project. It. embraces
no less than 10000 acres Of the most
FERTILE alluvial soil IN Amertc. or
This amount 11U,OOO acres lie in Ne,,,
-1eXico. $4,000 acres in Texas ana ~
VVO acres in Old Mexico. -
Is Not an Experiment.
o.n - cosling the government 81 200 %
- Dut u VIII redeem a terrftor,-
which win produce thar mucb -'oi
season Moreover, it is not an experi-
-uclil as much government work neo-
essarliy IS; II is the working ont Of a
SSCneIne which has been proved feasible
t,,-iel Gus Oh times and through cen
It is reducing to scientific certainty
lne poorly organized and euDirical
moIh or indiriduais-more or less
Iuue, more or less tentative more or
less subject to vicissitudes which viii
De entirely eliminated under fhe new
order OF things
Two Main Features
~ ~ embraces two main features. The
th ana most important OF these is
the construction Of tire largest reols-
nation dam ever built bv this GOV
erhInent-a dam which surpasses the
nluch talked Of Roosevelt dam and is
second in size only to the Assouan
all oulll by the British government
IA Egypt-a dam which will store more
water than both Of them. The second
Is a series Of diversion dams canals
ana bitches, whose purpose will be
me delivery Of the waters stored by
the big dam for irrigation purposes
In the valleys below
N round mum Jers, something like
half Of the lands affected in New, Mev
leo and Texas are now under cuItiva-
Ton Ihey are being irrigated by
means Of community bitches tapping
the waters Of the Rio Grande at COM
Henlent intervals and carrying them
down along the edges Of the mesa"
70 De distributed where required over
the valley lands below. Even so. CEN
turtles before any white man ever set
FOOT IN these valleys the ancient Pue-
bio Indians tapped the river and led
Its waters to do their bidding among
the gardens and maize patches that
rendered this country an incredible
paradise when the first Spaniards un-
der Marco de Mia entered the valley
OF the Rio Grande in 1899
The PuebIOs' Handicap.
But the ancient Pueblos Iabored IN
D.
Rio Grande is the most uncertain of
streams. At one season it swept
across its valleys, celebrating their
fral dams and filling the mouths of
their irrigation bitches. utterly spoil
ing all their carefully constructed |
plans and laying waste their fields At !
another, after they had, perhaps. re-
constructed their bitches with patient I
industry, dug their fields and planted !
their crops in hope of an abundant /
harvest, it brought all their toll to I
naught by going incontinently dry in /,
its channel and remaining so through (
out the whole growing season. The I
Pueblo was forced TO lay up store in I
the fat years vouchsafed by the capri /
clous stream. against the years Of |
leanness which il Wantonly inflicted ]
same Handicap in Later Years.
The same handicap has haunted the 4
eIIorts OF his white brethren in these !
latter and more civilized years. They !
built stronger diversion dams, perhaps,
and constructed their canals and ditch I
es more carefully. The ravages Of 4
the river in flood We're no longer able 4
10 take such heavy toll Of them They /
were equipped with better tools. and ,
could clean out with less strenuous
labor the bitches and canals st had 4
Illled upi but neither their better tools 4
nor their more scientific relocating in
struments nor all their Wanted super
iority OF civilization awaited to hold
the river from going dry upon occa-
siOn-a sad monument to which unWel- \
come fact was to be found in or
chards, dead and rotting where they
had grown to fun bearing, the victims /
at last Of the Rio Grande's undepend-
ableness.
The same cause operated against the
performance of ineyards-although
nowhere on earth, not even in the
Wanted valleys of California, do
grapes grow to more luscious perfec-
ton nor in more incredible profusion |
than in the Las PalOmas Rincon, Me-
silla and Ell Paso valleys
Incredibly Fertile Soil
There has never been any uncertain !
~ about the fertility of the soil in 4
these valleys; never any question about
their almost incredible prOductiv-ness
under adequate irrigation. The one
thing which has initiated against their
development was the uncertainty Of Z
getting water for irrigating purposes /
during the growing season. and the
uncertainty. on the other hard, of am
pic protection against the floods that
now and then ragged down the river
The problem which they presented
when the attention Of the United
states reclamation service was called
TO them was the dual one of flood con-
troll and water storage. Happily. the
topography of the upper valley Of the
Rio Grande lent itself admirably to
the perfect solution of both sides of
the matter.
At Elephant Butte, few miles above
the upper end of the Las Palomas vail
ley the stream runs between the
rocky walls of canyon approximate