296 



THE IRRIGA TION A GE. 



the largest, single irrigation system in the 

 world. The plantation contains 60,000 

 cultivated acres and is being constantly 

 extended. About half the plantation is 

 planted in cotton, which is 20,000 acres 

 more than the largest cotton plantation in 

 the United States. It has produced as 

 many as 9,000 bales of cotton in one year. 

 Picking on the Tlahualilo tract is begun 

 early in September, but it will continue 

 til) March, while in Texas and other 

 northern cotton States the last bale was 

 picked two months ago. 



Mr. Mackie is of the opinion that with- 

 in five years Mexico will be independent 

 of the rest of the world for her cotton sup- 

 ply, and will even export to Central and 

 South America. Cotton is indigenous to 

 Mexico. At the time of the Spanish con- 

 quest it formed part of the royal tribute, 

 and Emperor Montezuma II sent as a sort 

 of peace offering to Cortez a gift of cotton 

 goods of delicate fabric interwoven with 

 feathers of humming birds. The product 

 of cotton in Mexico at the time of the con- 

 quest was about 100,000,000 pounds per 

 annum. The Spaniards ravaged the 

 country, and then came the centuries of 

 disquiet and revolution. The production 

 in 1876, when Gen. Diaz came into power, 

 was only about 50,000,000,000 pounds, 

 while in 1898 the production was 70,000,- 

 000 pounds, more or less. The Mexicans 

 are turning out prints and finer cloths, and 

 in fact all kinds of cotton goods. The 

 mills of Mexico are in a large part spin- 

 ning and weaving mills. 



IRRIGATION ALONG THE ATLANTIC 

 AND GULF COASTS. 



The rapid extension of irrigation in the 

 West and the attention which it has at- 

 tracted has caused the irrigation already 

 practiced in the humid portions of the 

 United States to be overlooked. The facts 

 already gathered by the irrigation investi- 

 gations of the Office of Experiment Sta- 

 tions of the U. S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture show that there is a considerable area 

 ia the eastern part of the country now 



being artificially watered. For market gar- 

 dening and growing of high-priced prod- 

 ucts, irrigation has proven highly success- 

 ful. Few people are aware that the rice 

 planters of Louisiana irrigate over 100,000 

 acres. The canals to water the rice fields 

 along the South Atlantic coast were in 

 use more lhan a century before Brigham 

 Young's followers cut the first ditches 

 from City Creek in Utah. The area of 

 land covered by reserves, or reservoirs, as 

 western irrigators would call them, is 

 greater than the acreage covered by such 

 reservoirs in any arid State, and the vol- 

 ume of stored water is equally as large. 

 Recently there has been a tendency to 

 extend this use of water to other crops, 

 notably on truck farms. If tins shall 

 prove profitable, the physical conditions 

 are favorable for the irrigation of a large 

 portion of land along both the South At- 

 lantic and Gulf coasts. Canals to water 

 these level bottom lands along the coast 

 rivers can be dug for far less outlay than 

 has to be expended on many of the canals 

 in the arid West, where rocky canons and 

 precipitous slopes must be traversed to 

 reach the plains yet awaiting reclamation. 

 Recent experiments in Louisiana show 

 that the irrigation of forage crops is ex- 

 ceedingly profitable; hence it does not 

 seem to be unreasonable to anticipate that 

 we may have in this section of the South 

 irrigation works rivaling in magnitude 

 those of Piedmont and Lombardy. 



WESTERN DEVELOPMENT BENE- 

 FITS THE EAST. 



When eastern manufacturers and whole- 

 sale jobbers have their attention called to 

 the niatter, ic is a very simple thing for 

 them to see that with the opening of large 

 areas of fertile western land, through a 

 policy of national irrigation, new markets 

 will be opened for their goods and pro- 

 ducts. And so they become at once favor- 

 able to the idea. This secures for the West 

 an active and influential ally in every 

 eastern State. 



GUY E. MITCHELL. 



