42 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
At Holcomb, 7 miles west of Garden City, may be noted on the 
north side of the track a loader of the sort in general use for dumping 
beets from wagons into the freight cars. The ordinary 
crop of beets suitably irrigated is from 10 to 15 tons 
alton Siar gat to the acre and they bring about $5.50 a ton at the 
place of delivery. The tops are also sold for stock feed 
at about $3 a ton. The cost of cultivation, harvesting, and handling 
is $30 to $40 an acre. One ton of beets yields about 250 pounds of 
refined sugar. 
In the vicinity of Garden City and farther west the sand hills are 
very conspicuous south of the Arkansas, where they cover a district 
from 15 to 18 miles wide. This sand has been blown out of the river 
bed by the prevailing northwest winds. The sand is in a thick sheet, 
but is blown into dunes and dunelike ridges separated by irregular 
winding basins. Some of the dunes are 50 to 60 feet high, and many 
of them have crater-like holes blown out of their tops. Much of the 
sand-hill area contains bunch grass and kindred plants, but other 
_ portions are bare and the sand continues to be blown farther from 
the river with every strong wind, while new supplies are added from 
the river bed. This process can readily be seen on a windy day. 
West of Holcomb the part of the valley north of the river narrows 
somewhat, but the slopes are gentle and are mostly covered with 
crops, so that there are no exposures of the underly- 
Deerfield. ing formations. In this vicinity and at Deerfield 
esis 2905 feet. the north side of the valley presents a broad second 
Kansas City 432 miles, terTace or step, 50 to 100 feet higher than the river 
flats, a feature not common along this river. A few 
rods east of Deerfield station and just south of the tracks is the 
pumping station of the United States Reclamation Service, where 
water has been pumped from a series of shallow wells as already 
described. For a mile west of Deerfield the railway is close to the 
river, and the banks show thick beds of loam and sand of the later 
river deposits. Northwest of Deerfield is Lake McKinney, a large 
reservoir supplied mainly by ditches from the river above Lakin. Its 
water is used for irrigation in a wide district south and northeast of 
Deerfield. 
- Near Lakin the higher lands of the plains approach the river from 
the north, and in the next 2 miles the steep slopes rising to them are 
Holcomb. 
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