A Fruit Survey oe Mesa County 
21 
The Grand Junction section occupies about the center of the 
Valley. This section is more uniformly level and suffers perhaps 
more from lack of drainage of both air and soil. Still there are 
several elevated portions of this section known locally as fruit 
ridges on which are located some of the finest orchards in the Val¬ 
ley. The soil in this section is, with the exception of the fruit 
ridges, heavy adobe and quite difficult of handling. The Fruita 
section follows the Grand Junction District in order westward. 
This section has a large acreage of sandy loam soil that is capable 
of producing a great variety of fruit, potatoes and vegetables, but, 
due to its position in the Valley, the orchards are subject to be- 
lated frosts which often cause the total or partial loss of a crop. 
A considerable portion of the low-lying land has suffered from 
lack of drainage. The Loma District occupies the most westerly 
portion of the Valley and is less developed. Although over 1,300 
acres of orchard have been planted, the greater portion of it is in 
young trees. This section was mostly set out six to eight years 
ago during the boom period. 
EXPLANATION OF MAP OF FRUIT BELT 
OF GRAND VALLEY 
The map on Page 22 is designed to show the relative density of 
orchard in each square mile which contains over five acres of fruit 
land. This map is adapted from the United States Reclamation 
Service map of the Grand Valley Irrigation Project, and shows 
most of the land watered by the new Government canal, as well as 
by the older ditches. The various markings show how extensive 
the orchards are in each section. 
The entire Palisade District north of the river is marked as 
being three-fourths orchard. It is possible that some sections of 
this district have not such a high per cent of orchard, but there is 
even a larger percentage of fruit land in most sections of this dis¬ 
trict. 
There are a few sections which are left blank, but which should 
have been marked on the map. This is due to the fact that it was 
impossible to locate the orchard as to sections when the orchard 
itself was listed. 
West of the Palisade District there is only one section which 
is over three-fourths orchard, and only one section west of the 
Clifton District is over one-half orchard. > 
EXPLANATION OF TABLES AND DIAGRAMS 
For clearness and compactness, we have presented much data 
in the form of tables. In some instances, diagrams have been con 
