1 904 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 413 



but has been fertilized by animal and lets into the Atlantic, which is not more 



vegetable life through many centuries,, than 2 or 3 miles away at numerous 



I am confident that its crops will lift points. 



Florida to a place among the leading ' ' Experiment proved that this work 



agricultural states. would present no great difficulties. It 



"The project of draining the Ever- was merely a matter of a great deal 



glades attracted the attention of Henry of digging. Henry M. Flagler took up 



B. Plant in the early nineties, but he the project, and it is being carried out 



was by no means sure that the scheme by his lieutenants. We are not only 



was feasible, sol, acting under his direc- making artificial outlets through the 



tion, undertook an expedition through rock, but are also, by ditching and 



the region. Despite its proximity to dredging, turning large bodies of water 



centers of population, it was then for the into rivers and creeks which flow to the 



first time thoroughly explored by white ocean. The work has progressed far 



men. Ours was virtually a voyage of enough to enable me to predict confi- 



discovery. We paddled our light boats dently the opening in Florida, within a 



on lakes and camped on islands that, I very few years, of a great tract of land 



have good reason to believe, had never of almost unprecedented fertility." 



before been visited by any human being When one considers what the Ber- 



but Seminole Indians, and by these but mudas yield, with only twenty square 



rarely. We underwent so many hard- miles of rocky land, the possibilities of 



ships that some of our party were com- this great southern tropical peninsula 



pelled to turn back, but our efforts were seem almost limitless. The whole region 



not in vain, for we ascertained the im- is one of great interest, and although 



portant fact that the Everglades, along one of the first to be explored and partly 



the whole 1 60 miles of the eastern side, settled it has remained dormant until 



are rimrned by a rock ledge. We fur- lately. Settlement is difficult, but grad- 



thermore learned that all of the lakes are ually obstacles are being overcome, and 



several feet above sea-level, and we de- when competition in transportation fa- 



cided that there was nothing whatever cilities develops, the boom will be on in 



to prevent the water of the lakes from earnest. 



flowing into the ocean and leaving the This region of perpetual summer is 



land drained if vents could be made in the natural gateway to the West Indies, 



this long ledge of rock. The chief and the great peninsula of Florida, like 



question before us pertained to the prac- a huge finger, directs the way to fertile 



ticability of cutting through the ledge regions beyond, awaiting American 



in various places, and dredging out out- capital and enterprise. 



THE IMPERIAL VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. 



A SPOT WHERE A REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT HAS 

 TAKEN PLACE AND A GREAT FUTURE SEEMS ASSURED. 



BY 



GEORGE BELLJS. 



I 



N the southwest corner of the United reclamation of arid America by means 



^ States, where flows the mighty Col- of irrigation, 



orado River of the West, and near the With irrigation facilities in the Im- 



international boundary line between the perial Valley, a failure of the crop is an 



United States and Mexico, there has impossibility where the crop is intelli- 



grown up within the last four years an gently irrigated, 



important enterprise in the way of the The "Imperial country," as it is lo- 



