FRUIT-GROWING IN ARID 

 REGIONS 



CHAPTER I 



HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRUIT IN- 

 DUSTRY IN THE ARID AND SRMIARID WEST 



TWENTY years ago the idea that the inter-mountain 

 states would ever become important in fruit-growing was 

 scarcely thought of. The romance of mining and of 

 cattle grazing was then at its height and but little thought 

 was given to developing the agricultural resources. Fruit- 

 growing is one of the highest types of intensified farming, 

 so it is but natural that it is the last of the great resources 

 of a new region to be developed. The same has been true 

 of all new countries. 



The idea prevailed in the early days that the semiarid 

 part of the United States was destined to remain an un- 

 fertile and an undeveloped tract; and public sentiment 

 is no small factor in the development of a country. Daniel 

 Webster's speech in 1838, in which he characterized the 

 entire region, beginning with the great plains and extend- 

 ing westward to the Pacific Ocean, as a "vast worthless 

 area" could not be soon forgotten. Forty years later the 

 horticultural side of the question was still being debated. 

 W. G. M. Stone of Denver, writing in 1892, discusses this 

 incident in the following apt words : 



