COLORADO. 



175 



it in January, 1804, and the assembly chambers 

 will IT ready for the next regular session of the 

 Legislature. It is estimated to have cost $2,250,- 

 (KMt. Six years have been occupied in its miiM ruc- 

 tion. It is of stone throughout, the roofs are 

 laid on trusses sliding on wheels, thus providing 

 against contingencies arising from the action of 

 heal and cold. Wainscotings are of marble; 

 and staff, the material used in the World's Fair 

 buildings, is largely employed in the interior 

 decorations. The lantern is 200 feet above the 

 street, and is intended to be surmounted by a 

 st.it ue. An underground railway will carry coal 

 to the building and take away ashes and other 

 refuse. The court rooms and legislative cham- 

 bers have a ceiling 46 feet high. 



State Institutions. The inmates of the 

 State Penitentiary have been employed on an 

 irrigating canal which will water about 81,000 

 acres. The last biennial report of the officials 

 gave the cost of maintenance for the term as 

 $168,880.60, and the cost per capita per diem 

 nearly 12 cents. Since the previous report 907 

 prisoners had been received. 



The Reform School, at Golden, numbers 180 

 boys. One building has been provided to be 

 conducted on the family system, but the greater 

 part of the inmates are housed together in the 

 main building. The institution has 57 acres, 35 

 of which are cultivated, and in addition 435 

 acres are leased by the school. 



The provision for the insane is inadequate to 

 the demand, and in consequence many luna- 

 tics have been confined in the county jails. 



A new law giving the superintendent, with 

 the consent of two other physicians, the power 

 to discharge cured patients, will also aid in 

 keeping the demand lor accommodations nearer 

 to the supply. Heretofore, discharge could only 

 be made by order of the judge of the court from 

 which the patient was committed. 



Insurance. The eleventh annual report of 

 the State superintendent, issued in July, gave 

 the following statistics: "The amount of 

 risks written in the State during 1892 was 

 $103,168,403.69, compared with $93,519,766.16 

 written the previous year. The premium re- 

 ceipts were $1,721,483.74. The losses paid in- 

 creased from $573,139.42 in 1891 to $806,481.04 

 in 1892, and the ratio of losses paid to pre- 

 miums received, from 36'51 per cent, in 1891 

 to 46-85 per cent, in 1892. ' The number and 

 variety of assessment, endowment, and bond 

 companies doing business in the State are some- 

 thing appalling. Under our present insurance 

 system this department has no foothold on 

 which to base legal prosecutions against the 

 frauds and dishonesty of these companies or 

 associations." 



Military Department. An order reorgan- 

 izing the military Department of Arizona under 

 the name of the Department of Colorado, with 

 headquarters in Denver, was issued in July. The 

 Department of Arizona consisted of the Terri- 

 tories of New Mexico and Arizona, and the 

 southern portion of California. Headquarters 

 were at Los Angeles. The order abolished the 

 department of Arizona, and made a new depart- 

 ment composed of Colorado and the Territories 

 of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The reason 

 for the change was that headquarters in Denver 



would give the commandant of the department 

 do.-er connection with Washington. 



State Lands. These lands, given by the Na- 

 tional (iovrninent to provide a revenue for 

 school purposes and for internal improvements 

 are under the control of a board consisting of 

 the Governor, the Secretary of State, and the 

 Superintendent of Public Instruction ; 504,059 

 acres, principally grazing lands, are leased, yield- 

 ing an annual income of something more than 

 $50,000. The total receipts of the board from all 

 sources were $265,391.74 for 1891, and $214,:} 14 

 for 1892. The board has issued an address to 

 discoverers or prospectors for metallic ores on 

 lands belonging to the State. It explains the 

 provisions made by the board for securing care- 

 ful adjustment of claims in granting leases. The 

 term of a lease has been fixed at twenty years. 



Agriculture. The opinion of the chief chem- 

 ist of the Department of Agriculture is that Colo- 

 rado soil and climate are eminently fitted for the 

 production of sugar beets. He says : " The sugar 

 content of a beet is injured by long-continued, 

 extremely high temperatures during the growing 

 season. The elevated plateaus of Colorado are 

 free from this objection. The summer days on 

 these plateaus, while not cold, are certainly not 

 oppressively hot, and the beets are thus pre- 

 served from injury by being baked in the sun. 

 Another point in favor of beet culture is the fact 

 that these plateaus in many cases can be easily 

 irrigated. Take, for instance, a beet crop averag- 

 ing 15 tons per acre. At the very lowest valua- 

 tion for a poor beet containing only 12 per cent, 

 of sugar, this crop is worth $4 per ton or $60 

 per acre. The most careful culture of the sugar 

 beet, with the greatest care in every respect, does 

 not cost over $50 per acre, as has been demon- 

 strated by the experiments at the station at 

 Schuyler, Neb. On a larger scale this cost can 

 be reduced to $40 per acre. A good factory, 

 capable of working 300 tons of beets per day, 

 should have tributary to it from 8,000 to 10,000 

 acres of arable land. Of this, at least one third 

 should be grown in beets every year. 



Fruit culture is a rapidly growing industry, 

 the climate and soil of western Colorado being 

 specially favorable to horticulture. The orchard 

 area in the valleys of the Uncompahgre, Gunni- 

 son, and Grand rivers has increased to thousands 

 of acres, and the peaches of the region have al- 

 ready won a reputation for fineness and flavor. 

 The western valleys are adapted to all the 

 temperate zone fruits except the semitropical 

 species. What gives those valleys a great ad- 

 vantage over most other localities in Colorado is 

 the fact that peaches can be grown there. The 

 climate is much milder than that of the vicinity 

 of Denver. At present the demand for western 

 Colorado fruit far exceeds the supply. 



Railroads. In his inaugural message at the 

 opening of the session, Gov. Waite, after review- 

 ing the progress of legislation on the railroad 

 question since 1885, said : 



The right to make tariffs and enforce their collec- 

 tion is inherent in any railway system, but the right 

 directly or indirectly for any railway to rebate a por- 

 tion of its tariff, and thus discriminate between its 

 customers in the collection of its revenues, is a right 

 which no civilized government claims and no sover- 

 eign has dared to exercise for centuries. If the Con- 



