6Q BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Lake a desert. They subjected themselves to hardships of 

 every description, aud endured all manner of deprivations for 

 the sake of their faith. If you go there now, you will pass 

 through miles upon miles of a barren, ashen-lookiiig desert, 

 until, having passed through the magnificent Echo and Weber 

 caiions, you are ushered into what you might almost call a 

 garden. It gives one a most delightful sensation, after riding 

 day after day and night after night, over a thousand miles of 

 barren plain, to come into that great Territory, which he 

 knows was once as barren as that over which he had been 

 passing, and find all the fruits of the temperate zone and all 

 our grains growing with the utmost luxuriance, everybody at 

 work, everybody busy, everybody comparatively rich, and 

 everybody apparently happy. I say it is a thing which we 

 ought to set down to their credit, that they have been able to 

 show the practicability of reclaiming what was practically a 

 desert, because the whole Territory was covered with sage- 

 brush and sand. The very spot where Salt Lake City is now 

 located was once a great sage-brush plain, almost a desert, 

 covered with sand. Now, the city is one of the prettiest in 

 the country. The streets are broad and straight, the houses 

 are surrounded by fruit-trees and gardens, in which you will 

 see flowers of every description. I saw there one of the 

 most luxuriant gardens that I have seen this summer, full of 

 every variety of fruit, growing with the utmost perfection. 

 Cherries — I never saw such cherries. Scores of trees, every 

 branch loaded almost to the ground with most magnificent 

 cherries, and among the most luscious I ever tasted. There 

 were gooseberries, currants, raspberries, strawberries, many 

 kinds of fruit, growing iu that garden in the utmost profu- 

 sion. This garden was perhaps a little better located than 

 some others for irrigation; but the whole city is irrigated, 

 and this garden, of course, was cultivated by irrigation ; it 

 could not have been done without : but it shows what can be 

 done by cooperation. There was a large body of people, 

 under a central will, which could guide and direct them. 

 There was industry, application, and little loss of time; and 

 there they have built up that large community, under a great 

 many adverse circumstances, until they have become a pros- 

 perous and growing community. Of course, I do not refer 



