TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 145 



During this period no gardens were planted 

 and no crops raised, for nothing will grow in 

 this arid region without the assistance of arti- 

 ficial irrigation. When we were in Kanab the 

 fields were dry and dead and the leaves on 

 orchard and shade trees withered and falling 

 like frost-killed leaves in late autumn. 



The dam was finished, however, the water 

 behind it, forty feet deep, was almost high 

 enough to turn into the sluiceways that feed the 

 irrigation ditches, and it was expected that 

 within a week the fields would be watered, with 

 still an ample season to grow one crop of al- 

 falfa before winter set in. We found the peo- 

 ple, with deliverance from long drought at 

 hand, hopeful and jubilant and in high spirits, 

 over the prospects. 



Kanab is the center of a stock region, but 

 much fruit of a high quality is grown in its 

 limited irrigated area. Westward, in Washing- 

 ton County, Utah, some two days' journey by 

 wagon trail from Kanab, lies the famous Dixie 

 fruit region, in the Rio Virgin Valley. The 

 valley there is sunken low between the moun- 

 tains and particularly adapted to fruit growing. 

 A variety of seedless raisin grape, peculiar to 

 Dixie, is unsurpassed in the world, and the na- 

 tives assert that California has never produced 



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