FARMING BELOW SEA LEVEL. 



RECLAIMING THE SALT DESERT OF SOUTHERN CALI- 

 FORNIA BY IRRIGATION FROM THE COLORADO RIVER. 



BY 



BRISTOW ADAMS. 



THE Colorado River, lately styled 

 "the Nile of the West," is 

 being looked upon as the key to unlock 

 the treasures stored in the immensely 

 fertile lands which lie along its course. 

 It is predicted freely that with its aid 

 the " desert will blossom like the rose," 

 and a new agricultural empire will be 

 added in California to excel all the 

 wealth and beauty of the garden area 

 around Los Angeles. 



Yet the conditions in this newly ex- 

 ploited area are peculiar. The Colo- 

 rado River, in common with streams 

 having a certain period of high annual 

 flow and carrying a large quantity of 

 solid material, has in the course of time 

 built its banks higher than the sur- 

 rounding country near its mouth, and, 

 in forming this delta of material carried 

 in its course to the Gulf of California, 

 has built from bars to barriers ; so that 

 it has actually cut off a portion of the 

 Gulf, from which the water has since 

 evaporated, leaving a basin lower than 

 the land at the mouth of the river, and 

 at the point of greatest depression about 

 280 feet below sea level. At this point, 

 approximately at Salton, a small station 

 on the Southern Pacific Railway, no 

 agricultural operations are possible, for 

 the land is practically all salt, paradox- 

 ical as it may sound, and the salt is 

 plowed up, piled in heaps, and shoveled 

 directly on the cars. As recently as 

 1891 this area was covered with water 

 by a sudden changing of the course of 

 the Colorado by the self-damming pro- 

 cess at its mouth, and the water backed 

 up to form what was known in the 

 newspapers as the "Salton Sea." In 

 spite of the heralding of another great 

 lake for the United States, this water 

 disappeared after several months, and 

 it is said that a recurrence of such in- 



undation is impossible under the con- 

 trol of the Colorado by recent irrigation 

 works. 



While some of the lands for the pro- 

 posed farming are forty feet above sea 

 level, certain areas are as much as 265 

 feet below 7 , the town of Imperial, the 

 ' ' metropolis ' ' of the area, being a little 

 more than 70 feet below. Thus we 

 have the unusual phenomenon of a large 

 and growing community who ' live, 

 move, and have their being" below the 

 level of the Pacific and the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia and with much less thought and 

 worry, though many times lower, than 

 the dwellers behind the dikes of Hol- 

 land or the levees of the Mississippi. 



The marvelous promises for this new 

 land of plenty must be taken, however, 

 w r ith the proverbial grain of salt ; and 

 literally and fittingly so in the present 

 instance. It is freely claimed, and 

 particularly by those pecuniarily inter- 

 ested in the exploitation of the Imperial 

 settlements, that everything desirable 

 in California agriculture is here to be 

 obtained. Water and soil are there in 

 abundance and each contains elements 

 of remarkable fertility. The desired 

 results will surely follow 7 , if the land is 

 farmed right. But in this case, as in 

 every other, the "if" is the hinge on 

 which the gate of destiny swings, and 

 unless the "if" is watched carefully, 

 the destiny of the country will swing 

 contrary to the hopes and aspirations 

 of many. 



In the first place, let us look at the 

 water supply, granting that water is 

 the prime requisite toward future recla- 

 maton. Of its abundance there is, and 

 can be, no doubt. Measurements made 

 by the United States Government show 

 that at its lowest stage the Colorado 

 river carries enough water to irrigate 



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