UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. (COLOEADO.) 



703 



net weight; of dressed beets grown on one acre, 

 by D. V. Burrell, of Kocky Ford, a little more 

 than 39 tons. The next largest was 74,396 

 pounds, net weight; of dressed beets from one 

 acre, raised by J. W. Bellew, also at Rocky Ford. 

 This crop yielded nearly 5 tons of refined granu- 

 lated sugar from one acre. Mr. Bellew received 

 the grand prize of $200 in gold. The difference 

 between the results obtained by ordinary meth- 

 ods in Colorado and the prize-winning methods 

 is shown by the following comparison: 



The average yield of prize winners in Califor- 

 nia in 1901 in the contest was 21 tons of beets 

 per acre, in Utah 20 tons, in Nebraska 13 tons. 

 The average yield of sugar-beets for the United 

 States is less than 10 tons per acre. 



The State has 4 large factories, which paid 

 more than $1,250,000 to the beet-growers in 1901. 



Government Land. In July, 1902, the De- 

 partment of the Interior decided to withdraw 

 from settlement temporarily 432 square miles of 

 Colorado land, pending the decision of the Gov- 

 ernment officials upon two matters. In Morgan 

 County 44 miles were withdrawn, while a de- 

 cision is reached about the establishing of a res- 

 ervoir there; 388 miles of land in Larimer County 

 are withdrawn, while the department considers 

 whether or not to include it within the Medicine 

 Bow forest reserve. It is not the intention of the 

 Government to take this land out of the settle- 

 ment lands permanently, but to prevent any en- 

 tries being made upon it until all matters of 

 this kind shall have been settled, thus avoiding 

 confusion and disappointments. 



Irrigation. On March 1, 1902, the United 

 States Senate passed a bill for the irrigation of 

 public lands in Colorado and other Western 

 States, setting aside special funds in the Treasury, 

 derived from the sale of public lands in the 

 States mentioned, to be used in the examination 

 and survey for, and the construction and main- 

 tenance of, irrigation works. 



In the year important work was done in Colo- 

 rado in conjunction with the Agricultural Col- 

 lege and the State engineer, in order to ascertain 

 by measurements how much water is already 

 used for irrigation in the State, and the value of 

 crops on irrigated lands along the Arkansas river 

 and on the western slope about Grand Junction. 



Reservoir building is rivaling canal building in 

 its expenditures and is a great improvement over 

 the latter in the profits received from the invest- 

 ment. In the Poudre valley there are 27 of these 

 reservoirs, and in the Big Thompson 34. In one 

 of these valleys the reservoirs hold enough water 

 to cover all the land irrigated to a depth of 4 

 inches; in the other to a depth of 6 inches, and 

 furnish two-thirds of the water-supply for the 

 last half of the year. The Windsor reservoir has 

 a surface area of 700 acres and a capacity of 

 13,744 acre-feet. Its first cost was $50,000, and 

 it is now valued at $300,000. The Tom Wood 

 reservoir furnishes water for 600 acres. It cost 

 originally $2,000, and it now furnishes $2,000 

 worth of water to irrigators each year. Lake 



Loveland is the largest reservoir in these two 

 valleys. It cost $125,000. Its ownership is di- 

 vided into 300 shares, which are now worth $1,000 

 each, making the value of the reservoir more than 

 twice its original cost. The largest reservoir in 

 Colorado is at Twin Lakes, on the Arkansas. It 

 has a surface area of 2,600 acres and a capacity 

 of 89,066 acre-feet. The value of this reservoir 

 to the farmers along the Arkansas river is great- 

 ly increased because this has proved one of the 

 most favored regions for growing sugar-beets. 

 Another important reservoir on the Arkansas river 

 is the Koen, near Great Bend, Kan. When com- 

 pleted it will have an area of more than 60 square 

 miles and will hold when full 496,875 acre-feet of 

 water, enough to cover 250,000 acres to a depth of 

 2 feet. 



The tenth National Irrigation Congress opened 

 at Colorado Springs Oct. 6, 1902. The matter 

 of a proposed merger of the National Irrigation 

 Congress with the Transmississippi Congress- 

 came up early in the session, and it was decided to 

 postpone the vote on the consolidation for one 

 year. Chief-Hydrographer Newell, of the United 

 States Geological Survey, and Elwood Mead, of 

 the Department of Agriculture, addressed the con- 

 vention. Mr. Newell in a short speech rehearsed 

 the history of the irrigation law and told how 

 the carrying out of its provisions was vested 

 entirely in the hands of the Secretary of the 

 Interior. He then narrated how the provisions- 

 could be carried out to the effect that at the 

 beginning one or two extensive schemes of reser- 

 voirs and canals would be selected for immedi- 

 ate building. The selection of these would de- 

 pend largely on how much of the entire cost the 

 settlers under these improvements would be able 

 in time to refund to the treasury. 



The bulletin of the Census Bureau for 1902 says, 

 that in the last decade Colorado has advanced to 

 the front rank of irrigated States, surpassing 

 California in extent of land under irrigation, but 

 remaining second in number of irrigators and 

 value of irrigated crops. The total number of 

 acres of irrigated crops in Colorado is 1,300,840, 

 and there are 310,431 acres of irrigated pasture 

 land. The present value of irrigated land in the 

 State is estimated at $28,568,552, an average of 

 $40.77 per acre. 



Development of the Old TJte Reservation. 

 The Gurley Investment Company, of Denver,, 

 has entered into arrangements with Eastern cap- 

 italists for the immediate completing of the large 

 irrigation plant in the southern part of Montrose 

 County, and the northern section of San Miguel 

 County, embracing an area of 120,000 acres. The 

 new project insures the building of 60 miles addi- 

 tional or a canal of large dimensions, with laterals, 

 and side ditches 75 miles in extent; the carry- 

 ing up of the two great reservoir systems, par- 

 tially completed, which, when finished, will im- 

 pound more than 22,000,000,000 cubic feet of wa- 

 ter; the bridging of the Naturita creek canon, a 

 fine water plant for domestic purposes; the erec- 

 tion of a beet-sugar factory of 700 tons daily ca- 

 pacity; a large canning factory and other indus- 

 trial enterprises. The waters of the Seven Bea- 

 vers will be conducted over the entire area, the 

 present canal system will be greatly enlarged to 

 carry several times its present capacity, and the 

 general work of construction will be carried out 

 on a large scale. 



The La Sal Mining Company has shipped more 

 than 3,500 tons of their higher grade silver and 

 copper ores to the Boston and Colorado Reduc- 

 tion Works, the tonnage having netted more than 

 $250,000 above railroad and smelter charges. Im- 



