Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1925-03-24
IN OUR
VALLEY

j 4 torial writer for the Marsh-Fen-
tyess newspapers, which inclde the Aus
Yin newspapers, the Wichita Falls Rec
ord News, the Waco News-Tribune and
fothers, was among the newspapermen
who visited the Valley with the legis-
lature few weeks ago.
Mr.. Fitzgerald wrote a glowing trib-
ute In his papers to this section, such
glowing tribute that it should be told
to all the world.
Headed Winter Garden of America" :"
it reads:
Where is the winter garden of Am
erica located? Why in the Magic Valley
of Texas. A famous horticulturist of
America is a resident of the winter
garden. There are many counties in the
winter garden and Hidalgo and Cameron
are among the proudest. There are EN-
rire builders in this coming winter
garden of America. They believe in
magnificent school buildings and well
paid teachers who are efficient teachers
They believe in the city beautiful as
well as the home beautiful. They be-
lieve in concrete highways of the best
and in the upkeep of these highways
after they have been constructed.
Lawmakers, press correspondents and
representatives of the executive part of
the state government spent three very
useful days in the winter garden of
America, which is the Magic Valley Of
Texas. They saw a country which in a
few brief years has been rescued from
the MESQUITE and prickly pear, veri
table wilderness and transformed into
a paradise. They saw stately palms
fringing the highways. They saw mag
nificent flower gardens everywhere.
They saw vast beds of cabbages and
carrots and onions on one side of a
roadway and orange and grapefruit
groves on the other side. They saw the
fruits and flowers of the tropics grow
ing side by side with the vegetable
products of the temperate zone.
They saw flood control at its best and
land reclaimed by the forces Of flood
control. They saw land which sold for
now selling at $1,000 an acre. They saw
a valley with soil depth in spots of
500 feet and they saw overflow land
which had been worthless now valued
at $500 an acre and capable Of producing
four crops a year.
They saw men, builders of paradise,
who had been willing to bond themselves
to the very limit to create a section of
Texas which is capable of supporting
100000 people where there are less
than 250,O00 today. They saw the re-
suits of controlling the flood waters
which swept down the Rio Grande river
for 1900 miles, and in bygone years
made it impossible to farm 100000
ley of the Nile.
All these wonders have been wrought
by the empire builders who have flocked
to the magic valley. They were willing
to spend or mortgage all they had and
they made the gamble. They won. Two
wears ago the legislature granted re-
mission of taxes for 25 years to Hidalgo
county. At the expiration of 20 years
the. taxable values of Hidalgo county
will be ten times what they are today
and the state treasury will be big
gamer in the long run for extension OF
credit to the progressive men who are
redeeming a rich part of an empire
from almost barren waste.
Flood control was necessary to bring
about this reclamation of thousands of
acres Of virgin soil in this glorious
country which fringes the Rio Grande
river. 1t is known that the source of the
Rio Grande is in the state Of Colorado,
that the mightiest watershed in Am
erica feeds the river and when the snow
on the mountains melt in Mexico and
the Rockies and the winter rains come,
then the Rio Grande, becomes a nightly
body of water, eyer-rushing madly to
the Gulf of Mexico.
Hidalgo has provided for flood con-
troll and now Cameron county is men
aced. Now the mighty volume of water
directed by the hand or genius of man
in Hidalgo will pour its floods upon the
plains of Cameron unless the vast ditch
or canal is extended for miles and miles
to the bay by the taxpayers of Cam
eron.
These people have bonded themselves
to the limit in the costly improvements
which modern civilization demands in
the building of an empire. Indeed
gifted engineers say that the flood con-
troll plan OF Hidalgo must be continued
nv the Cameron people or else some day
in the near future the Rio Grande, on
a tangent, may find new channel OF
river bed and then the county OF cam
fContinued on Page Two)