8 



PULSE OF THE IRRIGATION INDUSTRY. 



THE ARKANSAS VALLEY. 



James R. Davis, the industrial commis- 

 sioner of the Santa Fe recently returned 

 from a trip throug-h the Arkansas Valley 

 in Colorado, and is enthusiastic in his 

 praise of that section of the West, which 

 has been reclaimed and made habitable by 

 means of irrigation. The Arkansas Valley 

 is a section almost 100 miles long on either 

 side of the Arkansas river, beginning at 

 Canon City and ending at Holly. Col., 

 within a few miles of the Kansas state line. 

 There is scarcely a product of the soil that 

 cannot be raised with] success in this re- 

 gion. The Salvation Army colony is lo- 

 cated in this section and. though the colo- 

 ny has only been established about six 

 months, it has already taken off its first 

 harvest, giving them almost a self-support- 

 ing yield. Their station is Holly. Says 

 Mr. Davis in the Chicago Record: ''The 

 Arkansas valley enjoys the distinction of 

 having one of the greatest and most -com- 

 plete irrigation enterprises in the United 

 States. The five lakes cover an area of 

 14,000 acres, with a maximum depth of 

 ninety feet. They are only used for stor- 

 age purposes as auxiliaries to the canal 

 system, which aggregates 410 miles of 

 main canals supplied with water from the 

 Arkansas river." 



Irrigation has made the section what it 

 now is. as it was once arid, and what has 

 been done here may be done elsewhere by 

 its aid. In concluding, the writer said 

 "Arid land when provided with water is 

 the most productive in the world. The 

 fact of the matter is that the West is as 

 inviting a field today as it ever was.'' 



GILA BOTTOM DYKE. 

 The Yuma (Ariz.) Suu in a recent issue 

 states that a plan is contemplated of dyk- 

 ing the bottom lands of the Gila river that 

 lie just east of the Yuma levee. The sec- 



tion of land in question lies in the shape 

 of a horse-shoe and comprises an area of 

 almost 600 acres of rich land, the richness 

 being due to the sediment deposited by the 

 Colorado river which annually over flows 

 this tract. The proposition is to build a 

 levee from the high bank, one mile above, 

 in nearly a direct course along the Gila 

 river to Prison hill, the purpose of which 

 is to control the summer overflow from the 

 Colorado. The word control is used be- 

 cause it is not intended to prevent the 

 flooding of the bottoms entirely, as the 

 water may be let in above by the head- 

 gate and conducted over the highest por- 

 tions of the land, and the entire tract 

 given a thorough irrigation without leav- 

 ing any surplus to stand in sloughs to 

 drown out growing crops. A water gate 

 at the lower end might serve to drain off 

 the land should an over supply be let in 

 at the head. 



This levee need not be more than three 

 or four feet in height on an average, and 

 the cost, liberally estimated, need not be 

 more than $5000. Levees, under similar 

 conditions, have been built at different 

 places and proved to be successful and the 

 Sun hopes that this proposition may be 

 carried out. 



The successful consummation of this 

 undertaking, considering its close proxim- 

 ity to the town, and its surpassing fertil- 

 ity, could not fail to enhance the value of 

 this tract many times its present value. 

 For alfalfa alone, for which it would then 

 be especially adapted, an expense of ten 

 dollars per acre (an outside estimate on 

 the cost per acre in constructing the 

 levee), the outlay would prove as an invest- 

 ment a veritable bonanza. 



Geo. H. Peck, an old resident of El 

 Monte, Cal.. recently contributed to the 

 Los Angeles limes an interesting article 



