The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-03-26
IRRIGATION HAS WORKED WONDERS FOR ARID LANDS System Has Been Most Highly Developed In
 Far West. Many Desert Acres
 Have Been Reclaimed Now Producing Great Quan- tries of Garden Pro
 duce. <
rGolden AgA1


 It seems almost impossible for the Eastern man to realize that arid lands in the West. which were entirely worthless a. few years ago, were sold in the year 1919 for as much as $525 per acre; yet it is said that even this high price was secured for some lands in the Snake River Valley, in the vicinity of Twin Valley, Idaho. A price of $350 per acre was. obtained for ten-acre potato ranch z near Nanpa, in the same state:<. These prices are unusually high.
 Some farmer accustomed to the de- velopment of irrigation lands gets his farm in good condition for. cultivation and his fruit trees approaching ma turity, when along comes a man from the Middle West with plenty of hard cash that he wishes to invest in just such piece of land. The deal is closed, and away goes the first farmer and his family to do the pion- ger work on another tract.
 The continual moving around Of the progressive farmers of the West is doing a great deal for them and for the country Farmers from the At 1antic states, the Southern states, the Middle West, and the Far West are
 
 CT; each has something of informa- tion to impart and something of.value to learn. In a very brief time men of this stamp turn a wilderness of sand, upon which it looks as if noth- ing of value would ever grow, into a thriving city or village of several thousand people, all by the wise use of a little water carried for many miles from it's source in a. mountain torrent, hugging the hillside, winding in and out like a snake until finally the vantage point is reached where the waters can be diverted to the plains below.
 A curiohs sight to the Fastener is his first observation of these irriga- tion ditches, usually first discerned in the vicinity of Denver, but common to all points west of that gateway to | the Rocky Mountain and Pacific 1 Coast states. As ono goes westward I from Denver to Golden City the grade | of the bouIevards is so slight as to l be hardly noticeable to the sS'a- Away 1 up on the edges of the foothiI1G, hun dreds of feet above the highway, he l sees irrigation ditches in parallel | lines leading from the(a mountain l streams out to the plains about Den 1 yer, but to the eye having the ap- l The slopes of the land are so grad ual in the valley as to deceive the l eye respecting the actual down grade but seeming upgrade, of these irri- l gation ditcheS. sf,
 | The governments stories7 of what | has been accomplished oneasome of its reclamation projects read like l fairy tales, but are the most simple, n1atter-of-fact truths. Nine years after the water was turned into the ditches at Oriand, California, it had three banks, with deposits over ST. O0O, 1000, real estate improvements amounting to ss6O,O00, live stock values of S64O,GGG, and irrigated acre age estimated as worth $2,61o,o0o ex- elusive of improvements. The Or land Jerseys won a1l the grand prizes at the Sacramento state fair. Al of this development has occurred or a property estimated as worth but $25, 1000 at the time the water was first brought into the community by irrigation.
 At an irrigation project in Cobra do in 1919, a canning company pu up a million and a half cans of to- matoes; and a grower of Elbert; peaches marketed 5O,0OO boxes iron fifty acres, at an average price abov,
 
 the peach question we remark al item which appeared in the paper last Fall that an Indiana consumer 0 s a box of peaches found a nemoran dunn from the grower in Tfxas stat ing that he had received 50 cents fo a the box; the consuer paid $2.5G-nic I little profit for some business men on the wayD
 s At another Colorado irrigation pro d Japanese farmers made 5000 i 1918 and repeated the performance i 1919, raising onions. At the latte s project, and at many other place q throughout the West, the farmers ar organizing beet sugar companies, 3 take advantage of the high price % for sugar now obtainable and expect E ed to continue for many years { d come.
 a In the Boise Valley, Idaho, the ke % to prosperity for the farmers ws A found largely in live stock, it havin N been discovered that the valley WE N a natural section for bluegrass, an therefore particularly suited to tf & raising of cattle and hogs. At tt S Milk River project, Montana, tf as farmers gathered a third cutting & alfalfa in 1919. This is unusual ft al Montana. Ct is said that in plac' ss in Ga1estine as many as eleven crol ss of alfalfa are now being gathered Es a year, due to ideal climate, increa
 ing rains, and a hot, limestone soil
 On the Newlands irrigation proje
 in Nevada a small boy markete
 S125 worth of canteloupes which l
 raised on plot of ground on
 eighth of an acre in extent. On u
 Carlsbad project in New Mexico co
 ton to the value of s1,0o0,o00 w
 raised in 1919. On the Rio Grant
 project, near Fl Paso, Texas, the l were produced in the Meslla VaT
 625 cars of canteloupes, seyenty-sevt
 cars of cabbage. and thirty-~o ca
 of pears, besides thousands of crat
 of other fruits.
 On the Umatilla project in Oreg'
 the frosts have usually given the fri
 growers much trouble, and some ha
 become discouraged and have eith
 gone in for alfalfa farming or nov
 away. However, some years are ve