Arizona republican., 1918-01-13

where agriculture is supposed to rule supreme, look dull and dowdy, like poor relations at a rich mans feast, compared to the farm lands around Phoenix, and when a man gets up on a platform in any state fair booth in this city, and declares that a little water will turn the | desert from gray to green and gold, | he has a shining example at his right | hand and at his left to bear witness | to the truth of every word he i utters.
 This simple newspaper man from Bisbee had heard much of the state | capital, of it's farming industries, its streets, office buildings, and progress generally. but he was hardly pre- pared to find such a handsome and modern city nor such wonderful de- velopment in agriculture. \ Imagine. if you can, some wild eyed curbstone orator trying to sell a lot of blue sky stock in some crazy scheme. He paints his pros pectus in purple and green and vel low and throws in a lot of tint, too gorgeous to be described by mere words, for good measure. You laugh at him if you have good sense and pass by paying no attention to his glitterihg promises and wild dreams of sudden wealth. But sup pose every lie he told should turn out to be gospel truth, suppose every one of his mines were filled with gold and all his deserts changed to gardens, and all his two and three hundred per cent guarantees should turn into yellow eagles and goddess l of liberty in silver white and green hn States seall
 That is just exactly what has hap pened here in these valleys around | Phoenix. All the fancies and fond 1 imaginihgs of the dreamer who claimed that the desert could be made l to bloom have come true. On one side of the roadway eight or ten miles from Phoenix is the desert, where the mesquite fights bravely l for it's life against the sun and the sand, and the cactus stands like skeleton umpire with all it's sympa- thies on the side of the desert and the sun and against the brave, green little bushes. On the other side is seen the alfalfa stretches in endless miles of green. and palms and or ange trees and beautiful country homes, and everything to please the eye of the traveller from the fairest and most favored portions of these l United States.
 "The water did itI A little thin stream of water which journeys all the way from the Roosevelt dam down here to serve its master, man. Faith brought the water here, and faith. like Mohammed, had to go to the mountain for the water. Neither the water nor the mountain will move for either Arab prophets or the man of today.
 But it is not of the present this newspaper man from Bisbee, who IS here in Phoenix to enjoy the state fair. would wish to think, at this time, or to write. Rather he prefers to look forward to the future. The cotton and fruit and vegetables and grain that are being grown in this valley are as simple and iLsignifi- cant and little to be changed for the future, as was John the Baptist when he came out of the wilderness . in his camels' hair mantle and his thatch of hair and with the wide prophetic gleam in his eyes. These | few acres (of course, there may b( u several hundred thousand of them, . newspaper man doesn't know), only | that arrive in front of the armies Every valley in Arizona can be mad to bloom just like this, and there art countless hundreds of thousands 0 acres of arid, desert land worth dollar now, that can be made wortl four or five hundred dollars, just a this land in the Salt River valley has been multiplied in value.
 "Stop and think of it a minute
 The best farm lands in many of tn
 older states range in value from $15
 to s200 and $500 an acre, but tn
 Arizona desert at which you use
 to jeer in days gone by, is riche
 and more fruitful than the fines
 bottom lands up north, when yo
 bring water to change it from deat
 to life.
 The newspaper man started in
 write about the fair. and the carnivi
 company. and the stock and the hors
 races, and the lemonade stands an
 the crowds, and the prices charge
 at the hotels, and the glories of ol
 days and nights before the stat mostly upon the transformation
 the Salt River valley into one of tt
 fairest and finest farming lands thf
 he has ever seen before.
 ''Oh, yes, they have some four an
 maybe six-story buildings In Ploeni
 and a good many miles of pave
 streets, of which they are very prou
 and bank balances and handson
 homes of which they love to spea
 to every stranger who comes, but
 the newspaper mans idea the fine
 things they have in Phoenix or i
 environs are its alfalfa fields green'
 than the shamrock told of in the o
 song, and the orange turning fro
 pale yellow to deep gold under u
 streaming sunlight and the cottt
 fields. stripped now of their whi wealth.
 There are two state fairs
 Phoenix, and one is in the ia
 grounds and runs from the twelf
 to the seventeenth of November. al z. the other covers all that portion
 irrigated land around the city, al
 it runs from years end to year
 end and its gates are open free Z. all, and it's lessons are so plain al
 so practical and so true that nol
 can fail to listen and to look al
 to learn"
 8 Do not wait till tomorrow-pho