THE IRBIGATION AGE. 



suggestive means of relieving the congestion of over- 

 populated communities. He believes that the inhabi- 

 tants of American cities are workers. Too many locali- 

 ties, he urges, are overcrowded, and the great West 

 needs them all. His idea is, that while the irrigation 

 congresses have been held in cities that extend over an 

 area as great or greater than several European mon- 

 archies combined, its operations have been more or less 

 localized, even in our great nation. 



The great argument advanced by Mr. Kurtz is 

 that the Reclamation fund is now being rapidly de- 

 pleted. His remedy is to devise, or have others devise. 

 a means for its repletion. 



A man who enters any of the professions 

 Intelligence these days without having first fitted him- 

 on the Farm, self in some school, or without having ac- 

 quired a practical knowledge of the busi- 

 ness to which he intends to devote his life, is behind the 

 times. There is no place in the twentieth century for 

 the person who is not proficient, and particularly is 

 this true in this country, where competition is so keen 

 and a man not only has to devote his time and untiring 

 energy, but his brain and ingenuity as well. The lag- 

 gard and he who is slothful and careless finds himself 

 in the rear of the procession. The successful business 

 man, in whatever branch of the world's activity he 

 plants himself, is the one who is continually seeking 

 information on the latest and most approved methods 

 of doing things. 



Particularly is this true with the farming element. 

 The cattle feeder makes little success unless he utilizes 

 the experiences which have likely cost his predecessor 

 dearly to learn. The farmer does not do justice to 

 himself nor to his soil if he does not study the require- 

 ments of his land. Soil eats just the same as people 

 do and if its requirements are not met it deteriorates 

 and will not bring forth what is expected of it. The 

 agricultural schools run by the various States and fos- 

 tered by the Government are kindergartens in which 

 the novice at farming and stock production can go and 

 become proficient. The time has passed in which farm- 

 ers were wont to scoff at institutions whose ostensible 

 business it was to inform them. Everyone now admits 

 that the agricultural college is a valuable, and indis- 

 pensable adjunct to a successful farming career. The 

 little-minded man who never could be taught by a "pro- 

 fessor," who, he claimed, was a theoretical and not a 

 practical farmer, has shriveled up and blown away. 

 The agricultural colleges, through their splendid work- 

 in tutoring the farming classes, have done their share 

 in hoisting our country to the topmost in the world's 

 agricultural domains. And there is no reason why their 

 achievements in the past may not be proven the very 

 beginning in making the soil and other elements and 

 agencies contribute to the welfare of the one who cul- 

 tivates it. 



In 1870 there were but 172 farms in the 

 Arizona. territory, covering but 22,000 acres. By 



1890 there were 1,400 with 1,300,000 

 acres. In 1900 there were nearly 6,000, with nearly 

 2,000,000 acres and worth nearly $30,000,000. This 

 land, practically all under irrigation, produced a re- 

 turn averaging more than $60 an acre. This advance 

 tells the story of plucky business men and farmers who 

 met the irrigation problem and solved it with their own 

 brains and their own capital. 



Now that the Government has taken hold of it and 

 the Colorado River, the Salt, and the Gila are to be 

 rohbed of their floods to fill irrigation ditches as soon 

 as the dams are completed at Rincon and Yuma, new 

 miles of rich alfalfa fields and fruitful orchards will 

 widen Arizona's strips of green carpet. Oranges ripen 

 in the Salt River Valley earlier than anywhere else in 

 the United States, and they bring a higher price than 

 any others. Dates are now being grown successfully 

 there. There is no better climate for melons, fruits, 

 grains, and alfalfa than southern Arizona; there is no 

 agricultural enterprise more alluring than intensive 

 farming where there is no possibility of crop failures. 

 People are only too ready to flock in wherever water 

 can be had, and these farmers who come in are men of 

 the same type that have made the commonwealth of 

 Oklahoma. More will come in, when the Yuma and 

 the Tonto dams are completed. There are 10,000,000 

 acres of land in the territory susceptible of irrigation 

 and only 1,000,000 acres have thus far been reclaimed. 



Besides the farms, Arizona has leagues of grazing 

 land, on which are to be seen sleek herds of fattening 

 cattle, and its forests are even greater in extent than 

 those of New Mexico. Lumber is shipped from Flag- 

 staff to allj>arts of the country. About 200,000,000 

 feet of lumber is cuj; every year, mostly in the northern 

 part of the territory. Much of it is shipped in manu- 

 factured form. About $3,000,000 worth of sheep, cattle 

 and horses are sold from the ranges annually. But the 

 chief asset of the territory is her wealth of minerals. 

 Arizona is now the leading copper producing center of 

 the world, and its output of gold and silver is very 

 considerable. Its total mining output amounts to more 

 than $40,000,000 a year. Mines like the United iVerde 

 and the Copper Queen support prosperous towns- like 

 Bisbee, Globe and Jerome. There are nearly 2,000 pat- 

 ented mines, and all mining experts agree that the 

 30,000,000 acres of Arizona's mineral belt have thus far 

 been merely scratched. 



r 

 Send $2.50 lor The Irrigation Atfe 

 1 year, and The Primer of Irrigation 



