777 A* IRRIGATION AGE. 



77 



produce all its own sugar, or at least the 

 greater part of it. This prophecy seems 

 in a fair way to be fulfilled, judging from 

 the reports which come to us from the De- 

 partment of Agriculture from time to 

 time, as to the success of this vegetable. 

 Sugar beets may be successfully grown in 

 so many different sections of the country 

 that as soon as there are more factories to 

 handle the beets, farmers will doubtless 

 turn their attention to this promising crop. 

 New factories' are being erected in various 

 parts of the country and the drawback of 

 not having a market for the product will 

 soon be done away with. In the coast val- 

 leys of California the sugar beet may be 

 grown successfully without the aid of irri- 

 gation, while in Utah and New Mexico it 

 has already been demonstrated that the 

 vegetable may bQ profitably grown on arid 

 lands if irrigation is used. In fact the 

 sugar beet can bs grown on almost any soil 

 which will produce Indian corn, wheat or 

 potatoes, provided, always, that the land 

 is properly cultivated and drained. 



We often sneer at France for 

 and*tiie being fickle, yet is our nation 

 Critics. wholly free from this fault? 



Two months ago Dewey was hailed everj T - 

 where with unbounded enthusiasm the 

 sailor came home to a welcome seldom ac- 

 corded to anyone: the presidency was 

 hinted at as a possibility and his admirers 

 presented him with a house in Washing- 

 ton. Since his marriage and his subse- 

 quent transfer of the property to his wife, 

 newspaper critics have wailed long and 

 loud and Dewey has greatly fallen in the 

 estimation of his countrymen, some who 

 contributed toward the house fund going 

 so far as to demand that their money be 

 refunded. While his best friends must 

 admit that Admiral Dewey acted injudic- 

 iously in so quickly transferring to his 

 bride the gift of the people, yet most too 

 much has been said of the matter for after 

 all, as a bright woman recently exclaimed, 

 "are not Dewey and his wife one?" 



Tea-growing in the United 



American .. 



Tea. States is progressing favor- 



ably, though the tea grown 



lere will not yet bear comparison with 

 even the medium grade of the Oriental 



products. Tea merchants, after examin- 

 ing samples of the 1899 crop from the plan- 

 tation of Dr. Shephard of Pinehurst, S. C., 

 say that the tea has improved some- 

 what, though net yet up to the standard 

 of foreign tea. Their praise is faint, in- 

 deed, but they do not ridicule the experi- 

 ments as they formerly did. They do not 

 say that the tea is ''much better" than it 

 was, but that it isn't so "bad" as it was. 

 One of the chief faults found with Ameri- 

 can tea is that it is too broken and too 

 crudely prepared for market. Dr. Shep- 

 hard deserves great credit for the efforts 

 and experiments he has made in this direc- 

 tion, in spite .of the discouragements and 

 open ridicule with which he has had to 

 contend. The Xew York Commercial is 

 very much interested in the success of this 

 enterprise or rather experiment, and gives 

 interesting accounts of the progress being 

 made. We will await with interest the 

 further development of Dr. Shephard's 

 efforts. 



The onlv trouble now existing 



Irrigation j , 



in the between Mexico and the 



" e United States is that in rela- 

 tion to the irrigation question 

 in the valley of the Rio Grande. This 

 trouble has been going on for a long time 

 and Mexico has filed a claim against this 

 country for $20,000,000 damages. A law 

 suit to settle the matter will be up for 

 trial Dec. 12th at the United States court 

 at Las Cruces, N . M. Judge Marsden C. 

 Burch has charge of the c.se for the 

 United States and he has been in Mexico 

 for some time time past, collecting evi- 

 dence for use in the case and also trying to 

 convince the Mexican officials of the good 

 intentions of the United States in this con- 

 troversy. The desire of this country is 

 not only to preserve the rights of irriga- 

 tionis&s on b .th sides of the Rio Grande, 

 but also to restore to them those ancient 

 riparian rights of which they have been 

 deprived. 



An exchange says that recent 

 {"iSrnier discoveries made in the lava 

 Years. beds of New Mexico have 



brought to light a very complete system 

 of reservoirs and irrigation viaducts, prov- 

 ing that the ancient inhabitants of that 

 section not only understood and practice^ 



