THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



will always assert themselves. Her position relatively 

 and very significantly is equi-distant from the great 

 cities of Mexico, San Francisco, St. Louis, New Or- 

 leans, Kansas City and Galveston, the distances from 

 each of these cities being about 1,100 miles. It can 

 readily be seen that this distance is sufficient to permit 

 for El Paso the development of a large wholesale or 

 jobbing trade, and that it is too far from each of these 

 points to come into competition or rivalry with any 

 of them, and as she has direct railroad communication' 

 with all of them, there is no doubt but that as her job- 

 bing trade develops, and the present number of manu- 

 factories which are already established is increased, she 

 will control a goodly share of the trade of her. natural 

 field. All of the cities named are competing for her 

 trade and for the trade of Mexico through her, which 

 naturally makes El Paso a great railway center. The 

 commerce of Chihuahua, Durango, Zazatecas and other 

 Mexican states which are cut off from the ocean by high 

 mountain ranges, is now passing through that city. 



The vast extent of territory tributary to El Paso, 

 and her position as the pathway of the immense trade 

 that will in the course of time be carried on between 

 the two republics and the states of Central and South 

 America, give her, to the observer, a commercial future 

 which the mind of the business man may readily grasp. 



In point of destiny it occurs to us that El Paso 

 is entitled to rank with any of the great cities men- 

 tioned above, and by the time she is as old and re- 

 member now that we are speaking of the new El Paso 

 as Denver or Kansas City, she will equal, or it is no 

 stretch of the imagination to say that she may outstrip 

 them. 



El Paso is entitled, it seems to us, to consideration 

 by investors throughout the country, as there is great 

 opportunity for the investment of money in business 

 buildings as well as residences. Rents in the city are 

 at the present time extremely high, owing to shortage 

 of available home property. Five room cottages are 

 renting today for $35 and $40 per month. 



One strong feature that the average visitor at El 

 Paso perhaps overlooks is, that the Mexican Central 

 Railway and its 1,225 miles between there and the City 

 of Mexico, passes through twenty-one cities having a 

 population of over 1,000,000 inhabitants. Lying, as she 

 does, on the American side of the Rio Grande river in 

 the center of a great district including western Texas, 

 southern New Mexico and eastern Arizona which is 

 directly tributary by reason of the network of railways 

 which center there, her position from a commercial 

 standpoint is assured. The railways entering this city 

 are the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, the Southern Pa- 

 cific, Texas Pacific, Galveston, Houston & San Antonio, 

 the Mexican Central, the El Paso & Southwestern, the 

 Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and what is known as 

 the Bisbee Railway, a line reaching over into the min- 



ing districts of Arizona, which has opened up a terri- 

 tory of remarkable richness and wealth, which will be 

 entirely dependent on El Paso for supplies. 



A representative of IRRIGATION AGE is at present 

 in El Paso with a view to prepare a finely illustrated 

 article showing the principal buildings, etc. El Paso 

 is well equipped with hotels and is amply able to enter- 

 tain the 2,000 visitors which her hospitable citizens will 

 welcome at the time of the Twelfth National Irriga- 

 tion Congress in November, 1904. 



The "Twin Falls Project" is one of the 



Twin Falls stupendous engineering feats that little is 



Project. said about, because they seem impossible. 



Nevertheless, it is purposed raising Snake 



river, Idaho, by means of dams placed 



at a point in the rvier about twenty-five miles above 



the world-famed Shoshone Falls. This will enable the 



waters to be distributed over a tract comprising 244,000 



acres of waste sage brush land on both sides of the 



river. 



The work is already well under way, the Nelson 

 Bennett Company, of Tacoma, Wash., who are con- 

 structing the ditch, having twenty sub-contractors at 

 work, at intervals one mile apart below the town of 

 Milner. 



Few are found these days who oppose the 

 Is Irrigation steps taken by the National Government 

 An Evil ? to encourage irrigation in the arid West. 

 Yet there are some who assert that exten- 

 sive irrigation will result in too much 

 competition for the farmers of the humid sections. 

 They argue that the reclaiming of, say, a hundred mil- 

 lion acres of arid land with the consequent entry of their 

 products into the markets will have the inevitable 

 effect of reducing prices for all. But they do not stop 

 to think that these results are rendered impossible by 

 the fact that the population of the United States is 

 growing faster than farm expansion is making headway ; 

 the market for farm products is constantly enlarging 

 instead of diminishing. Another thing: Irrigated soil 

 and humid soil are distinguished as a rule by distinct 

 kinds of crops, peculiarly adaptable to each. The for- 

 mer- caters more to the raising of alfalfa and fruits ; 

 the latter principally to wheat and other grains. Irri- 

 gated lands are able to grow almost anything, but they 

 are far too valuable to devote to the cultivation of grain 

 when more money is made in other products. For this 

 reason the humid regions will forever be left free to 

 raise their wheat and corn and other products without 

 much fear of competition from districts reclaimed by 

 artificial watering. 



The great stock raising advantages of the West are 

 made possible by the existence of irrigation which per- 

 mits the growing of alfalfa and other splendid fodder 

 plants. Range is becoming very much restricted and 

 recourse must be had to pasture. 



