TtiE IRRIGATION AGE. 



83 



farming industry bad gained for itself a 

 position of some standing. But notwith- 

 standing the rapid development of all oth- 

 er industries and the almost phenom- 

 enal increase of population of the city, 

 the truck farming industry has made 

 little if any perceptible progress. This i s 

 more strange in view of the most excellent 

 advantages this vicinity offers for truck 

 farming. Within a stone's throw of the 

 city there lies thousands of acres of land 

 most admirably adapted for truck farming 

 and which may be purchased compirative- 

 ly cheap. There are but few places in 

 Texas that afford a better market for veg- 

 etable products and very few afford better 

 transportation than San Antonio. 



It is not to be supposed, hswever, that 

 people failed to recognize these advantag- 

 es. The reason why truck farming in the 

 vicinity of San Antonio made very little 

 advancement is because of one natural ob- 

 stacle which was supposed to be insur. 

 mountable, viz., the drouths which often 

 prevail in this section. In a small degree 

 irrigation in some instances has been re- 

 sorted to, the water being obtained from 

 the San Antonio river and windmills. But 

 it needed somethining more than that for 

 a sufficient supply of water and which alone 

 could furnish a stimulus for the develop- 

 ment of the industry. This has lately been 

 found in artesian wells. 



It is due to the enterprise and foresight 

 of F. F. Collins, a man well known to the 

 people of every section of the state, that 

 we are allowed to take a glimpse of what 

 the future has in store for the truck farm- 

 ing industry of this vicinity. Much less 

 than a year ago 140 acres of land belong- 

 ing to Mr. Collins, lying about two miles 

 from the heart of the city of San Antonio, 

 presented almost the appearance of a per- 

 fect wilderness. The land was overgrown 

 with mesquite and other kinds of brush, 

 doing service to neither man nor beast. 

 Mr. Collins decided that this should not 

 be so, but that it should be put to the 



most practical and useful purposes, and he 

 concluded to turn it into a truck farm that 

 would eclipse all other such farms in 

 Texas, and immediately proceeded to drill 

 a twelve-inch artesian well. 



In less time than it was expected Mr. 

 Collins was rewarded with a genuine gush- 

 er soon after passing the 800-foot mark. 

 The clearing and grubbing of the land in 

 the meantime was going on at an active 

 rate. Houses were built, driveways laid 

 out, irrigation plants put in shape, and 

 about the beginning of last April, in less 

 than four months time since the first tree 

 was grubbed, land was broken water turn- 

 ed on and seed planted and a truck farm 

 came into existence which is destined to 

 make its influence felt aad give direction 

 to the development of the truck farming 

 industry not only in the vicinity of San 

 Antonio but in the entire section of South 

 Texas as well. 



In company with Mr. Collins it was my 

 pleasure to visit the Eclipse Gardens, 

 where I experienced intense delight in 

 what I saw. In approaching the entrance 

 to the gardens my eyes fell upon the sign 

 hoisted over the gate, painted in black let- 

 ters the words, "Eclipse Gardens." The 

 name struck me as being suggestive, and 

 before I got half through with my obser- 

 vations I found that the name truly ex- 

 pressed the place, for it surely eclipses 

 anything of the kind I ever saw in Texas. 

 The farm is laid out with a system of 

 drivewavs. Along one of the driveways is 

 a row of twelve neatly built three-room 

 cottages, which are used as dwellings by 

 the renters. The farm is divided into 

 twelve parcels, each one containing nearly 

 twelve acres, and one of these portions is 

 allotted to each dwelling. 



The water is obtained from two artesian 

 wells of a little more than 800 feet deep, 

 drilled at a distance of about twenty-five 

 feet from each other, and both having a 

 discharge of 800 gallons per minute one 

 700 and the other 100 gallons. The irri- 



