The Land of Enchantment: From Pike's Peak to the Pacific

by Lilian Whiting

Although only a limited amount of work in the way of development and seeking markets has been done for Colorado stone, the value of the sales is already an appreciable source of revenue.

Statistically, Colorado ranks first in the United States as to the yield of gold and silver; first in the area of land under irrigation; first as to the quality of wheat, potatoes, and melons, and as to the percentage of sugar in the sugar beet. The state ranks fifth in coal and iron; sixth in live stock, and eighth in agriculture. It is true, however, that irrigated agriculture is considered to be the most important interest in Colorado. The Centennial State is not, primarily, as has often been supposed, a mining state; the mines, rich and varied in products as they are, offer yet a value secondary to that of agriculture. A mine is always an uncertainty. A rich pocket may be found that is an isolated one and leads to nothing of a permanently rich deposit. A vast outlay of time and expensive mechanism can be made that will not result in any returns. An apparently rich mine may suddenly come to an end; the miner may have reason to believe that if he could go down some thousands of feet he would again strike the rich vein; he may do this at great cost of machinery and labor only to find that the vein has totally disappeared, or does not exist. All these and many other mischances render mining something very far from an exact science,—something, indeed, totally incalculable, even to the specialists and experts,—while agriculture is an industry whose conditions render it within reasonable probabilities of control and calculation. The great problem which continues to confront Colorado, and to a far greater extent Arizona, is the more complete understanding of what Prof. Elwood Mead, the government expert in national irrigation problems, calls "the duty of water" and the conditions which influence it as a basis for planning the larger and costlier works which must be built in the future.

"One of the leading objects of expert irrigation investigation is to determine the duty of water," says Professor Mead, and he adds:

"In order to do this it is necessary to deal with a large range of climatic conditions, and to study the influence of different methods of application and the requirements of different crops. Farmers need an approximate knowledge of the duty of water in order to make intelligent contracts for their supply. It is needed by the engineer and investors in order to plan canals and reservoirs properly. Without this knowledge every important transaction in the construction of irrigation works, or in the distribution of water therefrom, is very largely dependent on individual judgment or conjecture.... In constructing reservoirs it is as necessary to know whether they will be filled in a few years by silt as to know that the dam rests on a solid foundation; and it is as desirable to provide some means for the removal of this sedimentary accumulation as it is to provide an adequate waste way for floods."

The problems of irrigation are evidently highly complicated ones. There are large tracts of irrigated land selling at three hundred dollars an acre which, fifty years ago, were held as worthless desert regions. The value of water rights has risen from four to thirty-five dollars an acre. The Platte River and its tributaries, alone, irrigate one million nine hundred and twenty-four thousand four hundred and sixty-five acres. In the South Platte the average flow of water is two thousand seven hundred and sixty-five feet a second. The North Platte and its tributaries irrigate about nine hundred thousand acres. There are now over two million acres in Colorado under actual irrigation, with an agricultural population of some one hundred and fifty thousand, with a total income of over thirty millions. The agricultural population is increasing so rapidly that the day cannot be distant when it will reach a million, with a total production of more than one hundred and fifty million dollars. It is believed that an expenditure of forty millions in irrigation at the present time would immediately result in an increment of from two hundred to three hundred millions. The irrigation bill that passed Congress in 1904 proved of the most beneficial nature to Colorado; not only for its immediate effects, but for the promise it implied and the confidence inspired in the immediate future. The encouragement of irrigation in Colorado is the influence that enlarges and develops the agricultural efforts, promoting the growing industry of beet sugar and extending all resources. Beyond the material results there lie, too, the most important social conditions of the greater content and industry of the people and the corresponding decrease of tendencies toward anarchy and disorder.

In the quarter of a century—with the sixth year now added—since Colorado became a state there has passed over twenty million acres of government lands into the individual ownership of men whose capital, for the most part, consisted solely of the horses and wagon that they brought with them. Of this vast area there are some two and a half million acres under agricultural cultivation, which are assessed at a valuation of some twenty-five millions. The Boston and Colorado smelter, established in 1873, has produced a valuation in gold, silver, and copper of nearly ninety-six millions. In the year of 1905 the Colorado mines,—gold, silver, lead, copper, and zinc,—all told, produced nearly ninety million dollars.

The population of Colorado is increasing rapidly, not only by the stream of immigration that pours in of those who come con intentione, but to a considerable degree by those who come only as tourists and visitors, and who become so fascinated with Colorado's charm, and so impressed with her rich and varied resources, that they remain. The development of this state is one of the most remarkable and thrilling pages in American history. It is the story of personal sacrifice, personal heroism, personal devotion to the nobler purposes and ideals of life that no one can read unmoved.

"There can be no backward movement, not even a check in the steady tramp of such a conquering army," said the "Denver Republican" editorially. "Before it, mountains melt into bars of gold, of silver, of copper, lead, zinc, and iron. It passes over virgin soil, and behind it spring up fields of grain and groves of fruit. It brings coal from distant fields, rocks from far-away hills, and its artisans mould and weld and send out tools of trade and articles of merchandise to all the world.

"It pushes the railroads it needs to where it needs them, and the world comes to marvel at its audacity. It finds to-day what yesterday it needed and to-morrow it must have. It waits only the world's needs or pleasures to find yet other ways to supply them."

The prosperity of Colorado is a remarkable fact in our national history. By some untraced law, defects, faults, misfortunes, or crimes are always made more prominent than virtue and good fortune. The crime is telegraphed everywhere, the good deed is passed over in silence—as a rule. And so the strikes, and the outlawry, and the discords and troubles of Colorado have been very widely heralded, while there has been less general recognition of the firm and just governmental authority that has held these outbreaks in check, and has almost succeeded in ending them entirely.