THE TKKIGATION AG-E. 



435 



A PERFECT SYSTEM OF IRRIGATION 



The Wonderful Achievements of the Amity Canal and Reservoirs Project 



in Colorado 



[Correspondence.] 



Twelve years ago a desert, barren waste of rolling 

 prairie, where no human habitation dispelled the loneli- 

 ness, where the coyote and prairie dog played amidst the 

 sage brush, the only vegetation which made pretense of 

 existing on this arid plain: Today a fertile verdant tract 

 of land, a veritable garden of Eden, where growing alfalfa, 

 waves waist high in the breeze, where sugar beets and 

 cantaloupes flourish as nowhere else in the country, and 

 where fruit orchards and rolling fields of small grain add 



Alfalfa Field on the Property of the Arkansas Valley Sugar Beet & 

 Irrigated Land Co., near Holly, Colo. 



to the beauty of this one-time desert and to the independ- 

 ence of the homeseeker who was far-seeing enough to 

 choose a home where he was master of his own rainfall 

 and was sure that each year would add to his rapidly 

 growing bank account. 



This is the story "in a nut shell" of the remarkable 

 changes that have reclaimed the 70,000 acres of arid land 

 belonging to the Arkansas Valley Sugar Beet & Irrigated 

 Land Co., and made it into the homes of thousands of 

 prosperous farmers. 



Irrigation is the method whereby these wonderful 

 changes have come about, and through irrigation alone 

 could anything but sage brush be made to grow in so 

 arid a country. 



The Irrigation System of the Arkansas Valley Sugar 

 Beet & Irrigated Land Co. is one of the best in the world. 

 Its main canal is 80 miles long, having its source in the 

 Arkansas River at Prowers, Colorado, and flowing east- 

 ward, it winds around hills, is flumed over valleys and 

 syphoned under creeks until it reaches the Kansas line. 



All structural work of the canal system is the best 

 known to the methods of modern engineering. Its flumes, 

 drops, syphons, bridges, dams and wiers are all of rein- 

 forced concrete. The diversion dam in the Arkansas river 

 alone cost $125,000. It is built from bedrock, is 504 feet 

 long, and has an average height of 28 feet. 



At one place the canal, as if ashamed of its tranquil 

 flow, suddenly plunges out of sight and after tumbling 

 about below the surface of the earth for about a quarter 

 of a mile it again thrusts its head into the sunlight and 

 pursues its even way. The reinforced concrete syphon 

 which effects this wonderful performance is alone a per- 

 petual monument to the achievements of modern engineer- 

 ing. The building of this syphon cost 80,000. 



The spending of all these hundreds of thousands of 

 dollars alone was not enough. No irrigation project is 



complete without haying an abundance of storage water 

 from which to draw in case the river should be low dur- 

 ing the irrigation season. The management of this far- 

 seeing company did not wait to learn if the river would 

 get too low for them to get water in their canal; did not 

 wait to see their crops burn up in the sun, but at once 

 proceeded to develop a great chain of reservoirs, north- 

 west of their land, which alone hold enough water to 

 irrigate all their land for two years in succession should the 

 river be low that length of time. These reservoirs cover 

 an area of 13,000 acres of land, have a shore line of sixty- 

 four miles, and if the water were all put in a canal a foot 

 deep and a mile wide the canal would be over 400 miles 

 long. These reservoirs are filled from the Arkansas river 

 during flood seasons, and winter months. The inlet canals 

 are over 100 miles long, taking their origin east of Rocky 

 Ford, Colorado. The outlet canal plunges from the level 

 of the reservoirs 279 feet in a distance of 15 miles, where 

 it joins the main Amity canal below. To prevent the 

 washing out of the canal bed by this rush of water, rein- 

 forced concrete drops have been built at the expense of 

 thousands of dollars. 



Fifty thousand acres lying under this canal system out 

 of the original 70,000 acres have been sold. This has been 

 divided into forty-acre farms, on which have been erected 

 neat cottages, and here lives and thrives the thrifty farmer 

 of the West. Here he raises the wonderful Western crop 

 alfalfa hay. 



If he is a good husbandman he makes four cuttings a 

 year, and gets three to five tons per acre. He sells his 

 hay to the alfalfa mills, two of which have recently been 

 built on this land, for eight dollars per ton, and as the 

 cost of raising alfalfa is very small he has a big profit on 

 this crop alone. 



Colorado has more sugar factories, raises more sugar 

 beets and makes more sugar than any other state in the 

 Union. The Holly Sugar Company, a corporation under 

 the same management as the A. V. S. B. & I. L. Co., is 

 capitalized at $5,500,000 It has two factories, one at Holly, 



Cattle Feeding Yards of Arkansas Valley Sugar Beet & Irrigated 

 Land Co., Holly, Colo. 



in the heart of the land which we are describing, and one 

 at Swink, 85 miles up the valley. The factory at Holly 

 is capable of handling 600 tons of beets per day. It buys 

 the beets from the farmer, delivered on the Holly & Swink 

 Railroad, which was built especially for this purpose, at 

 (Continued on page 473) 



