438 



THE IRKIGATIOX AGE. 



From Barren Plains to Thrift 



Thousands of Acres of Land of the French Irriga- 

 tion and Land Co., in Antelope Valley, New 

 Mexico, Redeemed to Homes and Plenty. 



ONE can scarcely realize, as he looks over the im- 

 mense reservoirs and ditches /of the French Land 

 and Irrigation Company, that but a little more than two 

 years ago this valley was only a grazing ground for 

 thousands of cattle and that no thought was given to the 

 possibilities that now await those who have had the fore- 

 sight to secure a tract of this land under the splendid 

 irrigation system now being constructed. 



valley all their ripe experience acquired by generations of 

 tillers of the soil in the older settled states of the East. 

 They fully realize the immense possibilities of the future 

 and have gone to work with an energy and well defined 

 system that will not admit of failure. 



Guided by the wonderful results that have been ob- 

 tained by the scattering rancher along the Cimarron and 

 Verenejo rivers, they are planning big things that in a 

 very few years will make this valley the equal of any of 

 the famous valleys of the West. 



Like all busy communities there is a diversity of 

 ideas. Some are planning the culture of sugar beets, 

 others the growing af alfalfa, others see in the develop- 

 ment of the apple orchards the one great money maker 

 and home builder of the future. None are without the 

 elements of success and all will prove a winner to the 

 farmer who combines good business judgment with the 

 energy and perseverence necessary in every undertaking. 



All of the products as well as the small grains and 



Mill 



Exhibit of the French Land & Irrigation Company at the Land Show in Chicago. 



As one looks over the valley, now he can see over 

 10,000 acres of waving grain and over 100 homes of set- 

 tlers who have moved there within the last eighteen 

 months and all of whom are enthusiastic over their future 

 prospects. 



Good, comfortable houses and outbuildings are rapidly 

 rearing completion, young orchards are being planted in 

 every direction, great steam plows turning over the raw 

 sod, and it is indeed a revelation to a stranger who has 

 come here expecting to see the usual dreary and desolate 

 outlook common to what the Easterner terms the "sage- 

 brush country." 



The French Land and Irrigation Company has sold 

 over 20,000 acres of its land to the best farmers of the 

 Middle West and these men have brought to the Antelope 



vegetables common to the Middle West have been suc- 

 cessfully grown here for a number of years by the early 

 settlers in the valley, so that the purchaser of the lands of 

 this company have not only the hope of success but the 

 absolute assurance that his honest labor will receive its 

 reward. 



The Antelope valley differs from many irrigated dis- 

 tricts in this: Nearly all irrigation projects are narrow 

 strips of land lying along the rivers, varying in width from 

 one to three miles. The lands of this company cover an 

 area nearly twenty miles square, which, when its irriga- 

 tion system now under contemplation is finished, will 

 make one of the largest bodies of irrigated land in the 

 United States. 



(Continued on page 477.) 







