Year: 1875

The Pacific Railroad Region.


Two accounts, radically differing, have
been given of the great middle region OF
country extending from the Mississippi Val
ley to California The school biographies
have described it as an arid waste. The
statements of two great railroad corporations
are that it is an unexampled field OF fruitful
ness, destined to be the seat of great COM
monwealths. 1t would be easy 10 compare
the probabilities of these differing accounts,
and to Judge of the credit which should be
attached to them by searching out the mo-
tves of the writers. The necessity OF weigh
ing the evidence of the geographers and the
railroad men is, however, now done away
with.


The current number ofthe North american
Reute,o contains an article on this region of
the United States from the pen of General
W. B Hazen, U. S. A., who has been on
duty on the frontier for many years, and who
has repeatedly traversed the whole section.
His article is based on personal observations
and on the report of government officers who
have carefully and scientifically surveyed the
country. His conclusion is that the Western
limit of our agricultural lands has already
been reached by settlements along the from
tier, from the Rio Grande to the 10th parallel
OF latitude. From the Tooth meridian to the
Sierra Nevada, distance Of 1900 miles,
there is not one acre in the hundred that is
available for agricultural purposes, or that
will have any appreciable valoe for hundred
years to come. The fault is not so much in
the soil as in the want of water. Irrigation
by any means now known to science is out
of the question. The climate is altogether
unsuited to human existence. The summer
extreme is 104 degrees Fahrenheit, yet there
are frosts nearly every month. The annual
mean temperature is 45 degrees, while the
extreme winter temperature is 81 to 40 de-
grees below, and the winter storms are so
terrific that no man can escape death unless
most securely sheltered. Moreover, for
hundred miles before reaching this meridian
there is little good land.


OF the southern route, along the 32nd par
alle, we are told that the climate varies most
singularly in different years. Two or three
successive seasons of drought will be followed
by as many of abundant rains. Nothing,
Gen. Hazen says, can surpass the fruitfulness
and beauty of this section in seasons of plen-
ty, nor its desolation in drought. In the
third successive dry season the grass actually
disappears altogether, and the earth cracks
open in immense assures. The annular lay
ers of the timber show this change of seasons
to be the regular order. This sterile route is
through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
A great portion of it is mountainous, barren
and arid, and the rest is worthless, sterile
plain.


The course along the 35th parallel is not
much better. After leaving the Tooth merd-
ian the good soil disappears altogether. The
western half of the Indian territory is too
barren to till. Through New Mexico the
turbulent, rushing torrent Of the Rio Grande
has valley its whole length, varying in
width from few yards to three miles, and
there is some farming by irrigation. There
is not more than one acre in seventy in the
whole territory capable of even a.limited style
of agriculture. In Arizona much of the laud
is covered with volcanic deposits, and is of
entire sterility. So desolate is a large por-
ton of the territory that it is destitute of
game. In southern California the greater
portion of the area is of the most barren ma
ture, the bare and brown rocks seldom being
relieved by any sort OF vegetation.


The route along the 39th parallel neatly
bisects Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and
California. Up to the 9Sth meridian the soil
is excellent. After that we get beyond the
country suitable for agriculture. Sometimes
in single day when the wind sweeps east
ward fiom the great western attitudes, it be-
comes so hot as to be perfect sirocco, and
the green slopes of the morning are by eve
ming withered and burned to dull brown. In
Colorado only one thirtieth of the area is ara
BILE land. The route of the 41st parallel is
for the first two hundred miles one of the
most beautiful aud fertile portions of the con-
tinent. But after leaving this stretch we see
precisely the same condition of the soil, dry
ness of the atmosphere, insufficient rainfall
and general aridty noticed else where.


The route of the 45th and 46th parallels is
next taken up. Up to the 9Sth meridian
good timber land is found. Thence to the
Missouri there is little available land. The
Missouri itself has no available bottom land.
West of the Missouri we come to the Mau-
vaises Terres. In Dakota the proportion of
cultivable land does not exceed one acre in a
hundred. The ''rich valley of the Yellow
stone" is myth. All the way through Mon
tana we find great sloping hillsdes and table
lands, covered with thin grass, and few
mountain valleys of value for agriculture.
Reaching Oregon we look in vain for ''the
board, srich Valley of the Columbia, and
find no good land until we reach the luxuri-
ant soil around Olympia Bay.


Such is the region of country which the
railroad corporations propose to open 10 the
agricuturist. the herdsman, and the manu-
facturer. Comment on the extravagant state
ments which have been made concerning the
great fertility of this region is unnecessary.
In justice however, to many, it should be said
that great portion of the visitors to this
tract of country were taken there by the cor
porations in the most favorable season known
for years, when there was an excess of rain
fall, andivegetation of tropical luxuriance.
We cannot better conclude this article than
in the words of Gen. Hazen: SIT is eight
years since, with twenty-five men, 1 passed
over the Yellowstone country, where it is now
proposed to build railroad, and saw the
iniquity of the scheme, so recently discussed,
to build road upon the credulity of the peo-
pie, impressed with the belief that the coun-
try was valuable. Until there shall arise
some more palpable reason in its favor than
has yet been produced, it is an act of simple
duty to record protest against the PLAN"


How to live on nothing is a problem which
interests not few people. An English stock
company thinks it has solved it. The solu-