368 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



purchase from the Union Pacific Kailway and the 

 United States government. He is an old man now 

 what most of us would call old, although he considers 

 that he is in the prime of his career having passed the 

 four-score mark. He is unusually active for a man of 

 his vears and is even now making extensive plans for 

 future work. This is his last year at agriculture in 

 Clark colony which, by the way, is named after him 

 the property having been purchased by the Denver Sub- 

 urban Homes & Water Company, but he has other prop- 

 erty and recently remarked that in ten years, with good 

 care and intensive cultivation, he believed he could make 

 that land (now unbroken prairie) as productive as the 

 property he has just sold in Clark colony. 



But all this is not to the point. I started out to 

 tell of Mr. Clark's achievements in raising successful 

 and prodigious crops on his Clark colony land. A few 

 years ago he had 120 acres under cultivation in cabbages, 

 turnips and onions. The net profit on this crop was 

 $11,000. Another season the yield brought $13,000. 

 Cabbages have never failed to realize at least $300 an 

 acre, and the profit from other crops have been propor- 

 tionate. Mr. Clark raises what the Middle Western 

 farmer calls "garden truck" exclusively that is, cab- 

 bages, onions, turnips, beets, carrots and the like and 

 does not attempt the 'cultivation of hay, grain or fruits. 

 He finds a market for everything in Denver, some thir- 

 teen or fourteen miles distant from his Clark colony 

 property. Cabbage especially does well on the land, the 

 heads being sound and large. The particular section 

 that Mr. Clark has been cultivating the past few years 

 has been surveyed and platted into five and ten-acre 

 iracts, which have been readily sold to prospective set- 

 tlers at $250 an acre, and by next year it is expected 

 that twenty or more homes will be erected. 



The fact that Mr. Clark does not raise fruit does 

 not mean that the soil is not adapted to its cultivation. 

 One mile south of the Clark "cabbage patch," as it is 

 dubbed, is a twenty-acre ranch owned by a Mr. Blinn, 

 who has devoted much of it to the raising of small fruit. 

 This season in Colorado, as elsewhere, has not been a 

 good one for fruit, late frosts killing the buds and pre- 

 venting the development of fruit of all kinds. Mr. 

 Blinn did not uncover his strawberries until late, and 

 as a consequence had a good yield of that luscious fruit. 

 He estimates that an acre and a half netted him over 

 $400, while an acre of raspberries did equally well. Tree 

 fruit, such as pears, apples, cherries and peaches, are not 

 extensively raised, although farmers have within the 

 past two years set out many trees of these varieties, and 

 it ip not unlikely that within a few years Clark colony 

 will be one of the noted fruit growing sections of Colo- 

 rado. 



Sugar beets are not raised to any great extent south 

 of Denver, and I know of no instances of any being cul- 

 tivated in Clark colony. The reason of this is not be- 

 cause they cannot be raised, but rather because the 

 farms are too small to permit turning over the land for 

 such a purpose. And, then, sugar beets are largely used 

 to replenish the soil a process which has not yet become 

 necessary there. One thing that I saw rather opened 

 my eyes and that was several rows of tobacco growing as 

 luxuriantly and as large as it does in southern Wiscon- 

 sin. Tt was probably for domestic use only, as there was 

 no large quantity. I mention it simply to show the 

 fertility of the soil. 



One of the most interesting features of construc- 

 tion on the line of the Arapahoe canal are the pipe lines. 

 These are of wood and outlast the ordinary wooden 

 flume many years. The leakage from them amounts to 

 almost nothing, especially the new ones. The pipes are 

 less expensive in the long run and perform infinitely 

 bettor service. The process of construction is tedious 

 and hard, but it saves labor for repairs later on. The 

 receiving end of the pipe is generally placed a few feet 

 higher than the discharging end. The diameter of the 

 pipe varies from eighteen inches to two feet. The lum- 

 ber used is inch plank and every foot is an iron band 

 tightened by a nut. A trench is dug down the bank of 

 the washout and up the other side, forming a huge semi- 



view of Ditch in Gorge Near Castlewood Lake. 



circle; the pipes are laid in it, and then are covered 

 with soil. After the water once gets into the pipes it 

 remains there, whether or not water is running in the 

 ditch, thus preventing the alternate shrinking and con- 

 traction of the timbers which so lessens the period of 

 usefulness of a flume. The illustration in this article 

 shows the construction of a pipe line at Scott's the past 

 summer, replacing a flume which had been washed out. 

 There are six pipe- lines on the main line of the Arapa- 

 hoe canal. 



The canal itself is in excellent condition at the pres- 

 ent time. It was completed in 1891 and is truly a fine 

 tribute to the surveyors. Most of the distance between 

 Castlewood Dam and Clark reservoir it runs through a' 



