384 



THE IRBIGATION AGE. 



Colorado pays mostly for his water right. In some cases 

 this water right takes the form of a contract by which 

 the water company, in consideration of a payment 

 down and of the payment of an annual maintenance 

 charge, agrees to deliver an agreed amount of water 

 annually during the irrigating season. In other cases, 

 a water right consists in ditch stock, by buying which 

 the settler acquires a proportionate right in a canal or 

 ditch, with all its rights to the use of water, its canals, 

 dams, reservoirs and laterals. In such case, when set- 

 tlement is completed, the farmers own their own ditch 

 and run it to suit themselves. 



The appropriation of water from the streams of 

 Colorado, the sale of water rights, the management 

 of canals, the annual assesments and other details of 

 irrigation have been carefully regulated by the laws 

 of Colorado, so there is little danger of a stranger. 



ripen them. He can make the wheat berries fill fuller 

 by watering them when the grain is "in milk." The 

 Colorado onion grower keeps his bulbs growing until 

 time to ripen, then dries them off into perfect keeping 

 qualities. By keeping his potatoes always evenly moist, 

 he makes them smooth and free from knobs and second 

 growths. 



With the single exception of corn, there is not a 

 crop common to the temperate zone that can not be 

 raised in the valleys of Colorado, of a quality better 

 than that elsewhere. But there are certain crops that 

 have been found so perfectly adapted to Colorado's 

 soil and climate that they almost might be claimed as 

 exclusive Colorado products. 



Alfalfa and field peas have a double importance 

 to the State, for they not only afford profitable crops, 

 upon which are based immense and rapidly increasing 



^ 





Au Arkansas Valley Orchard with Bee Hives, Colorado. 



even though ignorant of irrigation affairs, being de- 

 ceived in what he is getting when he buys a water right. 



Irrigation is not a mere expedient for getting the 

 ground wet because it will not rain. Irrigation farm- 

 ing is an improvement in every way on farming by 

 rainfall. 



The farmer in a rainy country suffers fully as 

 much because it rains too much at the wrong time, 

 as he does because it does not rain when his crops need 

 moisture. Rarely does the farmer want all his ground 

 wet at the same time. Some crops thrive when moist. 

 and some are spoiled by moisture. 



In an irrigated country the farmer can always 

 depend upon dry, sunny weather, and so he can regu- 

 late the exact degree of moisture exactly to suit any 

 crop. The very color and texture of fruits and vege- 

 tables can be regulated by irrigation. The irrigation 

 farmer can keep his crops growing until they have 

 attained their maximum, then shut off the water and 



live stock interests, but they afford a safe, sure and 

 inexpensive method of renewing the soil's fertility. 



Nitrogen is an element which every plant has to 

 have, to grow well. Nitrogen does not come from the 

 grinding up of rocks, and it is therefore the only essential 

 of fertility which is not to be found in Colorado soil in 

 inexhaustible quantities. More than half of the air 

 we breathe is nitrogen, but in this form it is not avail- 

 able for plant growth. But by a peculiar partnership 

 with certain bacteria, alfalfa and field peas possess the 

 property of drawing nitrogen out of the air, not only 

 enough for their own use but a surplus which is left 

 in the ground for following crops. The Eastern farmer, 

 when his crops languish, buys nitrates at a cost of 

 $20 to $40 per ton, and spreads them on his fields, 

 but the Colorado farmer, has simply to put in a crop 

 which is itself profitable, and reap the same benefits. 



On the opposite page is a photograph of the root 

 system of a field pea. The mass of roots, it will be 



