THE UNOCCUPIED LANDS OF COLORADO. 



123 



close. No reservoir or storage system is used, al- 

 though the facilities are excellent for building reser- 

 voirs, and the cost, considering the large number of 

 farmers to be benefited, trifling. Here also, as in 

 many parts of the State, the question of the duty of 

 water is but little understood, and crops are injured 

 by the application of too much water in the early 

 part of the season. 



The La Plata district is west of Durango, and is 

 watered from thfe La Plata river. The acreage in 

 this district in La Plata county is small, but a large 

 canal has been constructed by the La Plata Irrigating 

 Company, and water taken across the Ute Indian 

 reservation to the fruit lands of New Mexico, a dis- 

 tance of thirty miles, in the vicinity of Farmington. 

 The canal is well constructed, and has a capacity of 

 200 cubic feet per second. Were the Ute Indian 

 reservation, through which it passes, under cultivation 

 this canal would irrigate several thousands acres of 

 land in the reserve. 



The Florida district is watered by the Florida 

 river, a branch of the Animas. In this district 10,000 

 acres are under ditch, which is owned jointly by the 

 farmers of the district. It is built to the line of the 

 Ute reservation, and in the event of opening the 

 reservation to settlement its capacity will be aug- 

 mented by storage systems, so that a large body of 

 reservation land may be irrigated by it. 



Similar conditions exist in- the Pine river district, 

 in the eastern part of the county, where the present 

 systems, adequate for the cultivation of the land now 

 under ditch, can be enlarged to reclaim larger areas. 



THE UTE INDIAN RESERVATION. 



The greatest drawback at the present time to the 

 agricultural growth of southwestern Colorado, and the 

 sole cause of the predominance of mining interests 

 over agriculture in the past, is the fact that a strip of 

 land, fifteen miles wide and 110 miles long, is main- 

 tained along the southern boundaries of Montezuma ) 



La Plata and part of Archuleta counties as an Indian 

 reservation, that of the southern Utes. 



The reservation is crossed by seven large streams, 

 having their sources in the mountains to the north 

 and flowing southwesterly across the reservation. 

 The valleys, or first bottoms, of these rivers are nar- 

 row and contain but little farming land; but, lying 

 between them, and at an elevation of one to three 

 hundred feet, are large tracts of level " mesa " lands. 

 Within the reservation .are upward of 500,000 acres 

 of these lands, extending southward into New Mexico 

 No part of these table lands, either in the reservation 

 or below it, can be farmed without irrigation, nor can 

 any part of it be irrigated except by means of large 

 systems established in or above the reservation. 



The Utes, who number about 1,000, have scarcely, 

 more than 100 acres of this immense body of rich 

 land under cultivation. They are a lazy, shiftless lot 

 of "blanket" Indians, and what effort they make, 

 outside of gambling, to make a living is by raising 

 stock. This they cannot do with any great measure 

 of success, as they find it difficult to keep their stock 

 from roaming beyond the narrow limits of their re- 

 serve, and their pasture constantly suffers from en- 

 croachments from the outside. 



The association desires Congress to retain the 

 Indians on their present reservation, dissolving the 

 tribal relation, and apportioning the land to them in 

 severally, and it is possible the fatal mistake of doing 

 this will be made. 



Their reservation, if the treaty made with them 

 should be ratified, would add nearly half a million 

 acres of rich farming and fruit growing lands to 

 southwestern Colorado. Several extensive irrigation 

 schemes for its reclamation are contemplated, and, 

 instead of now lying idle, a wilderness of sage brush 

 and cactus, it would soon by the enterprise and energy 

 of the citizens of the southwest become a region "fair 

 as the garden of the Lord." 



UTE INDIAN RESERVATION, SOUTHWEST COLORADO. 



