Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace

by George Hebard Maxwell

They would estimate, as we have done, the total amount of sediment carried by the river every year into the Gulf of California and wasted. They would find that the Colorado River discharges during an average year into the Gulf of California 338,000,000 tons of mud and silt as suspended matter, and in addition to this 19,490,000 tons of gypsum, lime, sodium chloride and other salts,—in all a total of 357,490,000 tons each year of fertilizing material. It is enough to give to 3,574,900 acres an annual fertilization of one hundred tons of this marvelously rich material that would be annually carried by the water to the land if proper scientific methods were adopted for the reclamation of the irrigable land located between Needles and Yuma, which is over three and a half million acres. The fertilization thus given to the land would be of value equal to that with which the Nile has fertilized Egypt every year since before the dawn of history.

They would find that the total run-off from the Colorado River watershed that now runs to waste is enough to irrigate 5,000,000 acres of land located in the main valley of the river between the mouth of the Colorado Canyon and the Mexican boundary line. They would find that the area of land so located that can be irrigated by gravity canals is 2,000,000 acres; that 1,500,000 more acres can be irrigated by pumping with electric power generated in the river, and, from the best information now obtainable, that the area irrigated by pumping can eventually be enlarged another 1,500,000 acres, making a total in all of 5,000,000 irrigable acres in the main Colorado River Valley, including the Imperial Valley and the valley above Yuma. Including the entire watershed or drainage basin of the Colorado River, and all lands irrigable from underground supplies, and enlarging the irrigable area to the fullest extent that it would ultimately be enlarged by return seepage, they would find that they could eventually irrigate more than 12,500,000 acres, which is as much land as is now irrigated and cultivated in Japan.

They would figure on acreculture rather than agriculture, and would investigate to the minutest detail the problem of fertilization. They would figure on handling the silt of the Colorado River just as the silt of the Nile is handled in Egypt, fertilizing as large an area as possible with it. The Colorado River carries silt that is very fine and enough of it could be brought in the water every year to practically every irrigated field, to maintain the incredible fertility and productiveness of the bottom lands and increase that of the mesa lands.

They would look for phosphate, potash, and nitrogen for fertilizers. They would find that an inexhaustible supply of potash could be manufactured from the giant kelp beds of the Pacific Coast. They would learn that there are in the territory included in the drainage basin of the Colorado River unlimited deposits of phosphate rock from which all needed phosphate could be mined. Nitrogen, they would ascertain, could be produced from the air in immense quantities by the use of the electric power which could be developed without limit in the canyon of the Colorado River.

They would utilize for that purpose all the vast surplus of electric power from the Colorado River as it whirls and plunges down the most stupendous river gorge in the world. In addition to producing all they needed to fertilize their own lands they would produce enough nitrogen, potash and phosphates to supply the markets of the world.

The land, the water, and the fertilizer being thus assured, they would find the climate such that even the intensive methods of gardening now customary in Japan, would give no idea of the possibilities of acreage production in the Colorado River Valley. In that valley acreculture would be hothouse culture out-of-doors. The hot climate of the country would be found, when this economic survey of it was made, to be its greatest asset.

They would find that every product of the tropical and semi-tropical countries of the world could be here produced to perfection. They would find that by actual experience extending over many years, an acre of land in such a climate, closely cultivated and abundantly fertilized, and cropped several times a year, would produce from $1000 to $2000 net profit annually and even more, depending on the skill of the cultivator.

They would find that the skilled soil-cultivators of Japan could by this system of hothouse culture out-of-doors, provide all the food for an average family for a year, and produce over and above that an average of $1000 net profit per acre every year. This would include every product now successfully grown in Southern California.

They would find that the Colorado River could be canalized from Yuma to the Needles, and the Gila and Salt Rivers canalized from Yuma to Phoenix and Florence, and a ship canal built from Yuma to the Gulf of California. Then the products from this wonderfully prolific country could be shipped from Yuma to every seaport of the world. Through the Panama Canal they could reach every seaport on the Atlantic Coast. By trans-shipment at New Orleans to canal or river steamers or barges they would connect with a river system 20,000 miles in extent for the distribution of their products to inland territory.

They would calculate the cost of reclamation and the value of the reclaimed land, measured by its productive power. They would figure that they could afford to spend on the reclamation of the land at least an amount equal to the value of one year's production from the land. That would be $1000 per acre. Figuring only on the 5,000,000 acres that could be reclaimed in the main lower valley of the Colorado River below the canyon, they would find that it would justify a total expenditure of five billion dollars.