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as to the purposes, the legislative decision should always stand.

How the Supreme Court of the United States will decide this question remains to be seen. But taking into consideration

the needs and necessities of the arid West, which resulted in change from the common law doctrine of waters to the doctrine

of appropriation which has already been sustained by that Court, and also the needs and necessities for the organization of the districts in question for the better development of the country at large, it seems to us that the Court will sustain the decisions already given by the Supreme Court of California..

SUGAR BEETS IN THE PECOS VALLEY.

BY GEO. R. BUCKMAN.

THE sugar beet industry is rapidly parts of France and Germany lends a

growing in importance in the United States, as evidenced by the fact that the production has increased from 300 tons in 1887 to 21,825 tons in 1893. In spite of this great growth, we are still furnishing a relatively small proportion of the world's production of beet sugar, which in the latter year was 3,402,000 tons, about onethird of which was produced in Germany. In Europe there are fourteen hundred and fifty beet sugar factories, while in the United States there are but six. Since the United States produces only about twelve per cent of all the sugar it consumes, it would seem to require no argument to prove that there is room for a further very great expansion of the beet sugar industry in this country. Threefifths of the world's production of sugar is derived from the sugar beet, and hence the facts relating to the progress in the culture of this root in the United States are of natural interest and importance.

It has long been known that the sugar beet attains its highest perfection in the so called arid region of the United States and particularly in its southern portions. The soil and climate of this region, supplemented by irrigation, conspire to produce beets high in sugar and purity and yielding heavily in tonnage per acre. Many well informed people believe that the beet sugar industry of the future will center in this region, and hence are watching developments in this quarter with great interest. I make no apology therefore in giving the following somewhat detailed account of results in sugar beet culture obtained during its present season in the Pecos valley, in southeastern New Mexico, to which the partial failure of this season's beet crop in Nebraska as well as in

further timely interest.

It has been known for several years that beets yielding high percentages in sugar and purity could be grown in the Pecos valley; and as long ago as 1891 sample beets from the Valley were sent to the Agricultural Department at Washington, which analyzed remarkably high. But about two years ago The Pecos Company undertook itself by an extended series of experiments to determine accurately the capabilities of this section for beet culture. It engaged for this work Mr. E. M. Skeats, an agricultural chemist of Woolwich, England, who had had wide experience, not only in that country, but in South America and the United States. Under his directions several approved kinds of seed were distributed to the farmers in various portions of the Valley, the growth and cultivation watched, and analyses of the beets made at various stages of their growth. During the present season in particular these experiments have been carried on quite extensively, with results that are astonishing even to those who entertained the highest opinion of the Pecos valley as a sugar beet country. During the early days of November, analyses were made of beets grown in about twenty different places in the Valley. The results are remarkable. Beets were analyzed which ran as high as 21.10 per cent in sugar and 86.90 per cent purity, while the average of one entire field was 19.40 per cent sugar and 84.86 per cent purity. These high percentages were found in almost every part of the Valley, the only exceptions being where inferior seed had been used or where proper care and cultivation had been denied. None of the beets examined at that time had

attained full ripeness and hence it was expected that later they would yield even higher results. This has proven to be the case, as will be seen from the annexed table of analyses made about two weeks later. In this table analyses are given of twenty-five beets taken from ten feet of an average row. It will be seen that the average of these beets is 20.87 per cent sugar and 87 per cent purity. One beet yielded 23.75 per cent sugar, which is believed to be the highest saccharine percentage of which there is any authentic record. From the weight of these twenty-five beets it is estimated that the field will yield at the rate of 31 tons per

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at what he there found in relation to sugar beet culture, and with nothing more than this prolongation of the harvesting season. He did not hesitate to pronounce the Pecos valley as by far the most favorable region for sugar beet culture and sugar manufacture of which he had knowledge.

It is almost unnecessary to point out that such a misfortune as has just overtaken the Nebraska beet raisers can not occur in the Pecos valley. In the first place, a summer drought to retard the growth of the beet is there impossible; and in the next place there are no frosts to harm the beet during the last few weeks of its ripening, which is the period when it is adding most rapidly to its saccharine stores.

Possessing these numerous and great advantages, and with the enterprise that has from the beginning characterized its development, the Pecos valley can not fail to become a most important center of the beet sugar industry. The Pecos Company expects very soon to begin the manufacture of beet sugar on an extensive scale, and is maturing plans for the erection in season for next year's crop of a factory with a daily capacity of 500 tons of beets.

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Average of 10 ft., 25 beets. 13.8 20.87 87.00

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These results are sufficiently astonishing; but this is not all. The climatic conditions of the Pecos valley make it possible so to arrange the times of planting as to insure a continuous harvesting season from September till April. This is of immense importance in the practical manufacture of beet sugar, for the reason that it virtually doubles the average length of the sugar campaign." This ripening of the beets throughout the entire winter seems almost incredible, but it is an undoubted fact nevertheless, and gives the Pecos valley a very marked advantage over every other region where beets are at present grown. In California the winter rains sometimes spoil the beets by causing a second growth, while in Nebraska and Canada as well as in France and Germany the crops must be taken from the ground before frost. Mr. Alfred Musy, the noted French beet sugar expert, who visited the Pecos valley last April, was astonished

IRRIGATION BECOMING GENERAL.

IRRIGATION is
RRIGATION is spreading throughout
the United States like a prairie fire in
a windstorm. Agricultural classes have
Agricultural classes have
been studying the advantages of this sure
method of farming for a long time, and
the general drought of the past season
has once more indicated that the richest
and most fertile lands along the largest
water courses are not safe without means
of watering, for rain cannot be depended
upon when most needed. Intelligence is
received that for the coming season irriga-
tion will be resorted to in various sections
of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York,
New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine.
There was irrigation in several of the
Southern States in 1895, and in 1896 every
State in the whole Southern tier will
farm more or less under the infallible
plan. It is learned also that sections of
Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota will fall
in line, and that irrigation operations will
be largely increased in Nebraska, South Da-
kota and North Dakota. In the former arid
States and Territories of the West, great
progress has been made in this safe mode
of farming, but this article deals wholly
with the rain belt. THE IRRIGATION AGE
being the pioneer in irrigation journalism
congratulates the country on the general
adoption of the methods it has so long
advocated.

That the wonderful success of the irrigated farm at Kankakee will give a great impetus to irrigation in Illinois there can be no doubt. Sooner or later this State and other States along the line of the great lakes will be watered by pipe lines from those great bodies of water, Illinois especially, penetrated as it is to be by the great Drainage Canal. Alarmists are saying that the withdrawal of 300,000 cubic feet of water per minute from Lake Michigan by the Drainage Canal will reduce the level of the lakes to such an extent as to interfere with navigation by the largest lake steamers. In a rain of six inches which recently fell over these lakes the quantity of water added to them was 1,079,640,176,000 cubic feet. It would take seven years for the Chicago Drainage

Canal to withdraw this quantity of water. This "drainage" canal is really a great ship canal, and by tapping it here and there crops will be aided to make cargoes for those ships.

But that is a matter of the future. For the immediate present, pumping plants will convey water from neighboring streams, as at Kankakee, and in this farmers can associate themselves together here and there and divide the expense. Reservoirs and lakes will be made in different sections, and various means will be employed in pumping the water. Two irrigations a season will prove sufficient in Illinois. Gas engines, oil engines and perhaps electricity will furnish the power, and it is likely that wind mills will cut a big figure. With a gasoline engine, a pump and a reservoir, small patches can be independent of any general irrigation companies, though it must be confessed that the latter have proved a great benefit in the far West, reclaiming thousands of acres of barren lands and transforming them into farms that produce not only one, but several crops a season.

During the recent meeting of the Illinois State Horticultural Society at Kankakee, one hundred of the membersin attendance, with their wives, visited the irrigated farm of the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane, on the invitation of Dr. Gapen, the superintendent, and the reported wonderful crops of the past season were investigated to their entire satisfaction. That many of these farmers will irrigate their orchards and gardens goeswithout the saying. Certain it is that a large number of them said they "didn't propose to wait on the rain any more." But corn, and everything that grows, can be irrigated, and, even in the most fertile regions of the rain belt, crops will be fourfold greater with irrigation than without it.

A bit of intelligence which is of importance to Illinois farm owners can be conveyed herewith. It is that a company has recently been incorporated at Springfield "to buy and sell farm lands in Illinois,' which intends nothing less than the buy

ing up of farms just now, when farmers, as is supposed, are discouraged and will sell cheap, put in irrigation plants and then sell them off at gilt-edged prices. The headquarters of this company are now in Chicago but the gentlemen have heretofore been operating in the same way further West. The Southern colonies, made up of farmers in Illinois. and Indiana, will make their operations very profitable. There is much unfavorble comment in a quiet way, and it is charged that one of the men connected with this company is the prime mover in a certain Southern colony, and that, through other parties, he actually bought, cheaply, the farms of two men whom he personally induced to go South. But the

point here is that this company, even in legitimate buying, see a chance for making big money by improving the farms through irrigation and selling them again. If this company can do this, the present owners can do the same, and thus bring up the value of their holdings.

The plan that many farmers will adopt is wind power, pumps and reservoirs or lakes. The bottoms and sides of these artificial lakes only require puddling. After this has been done the seepage will be no greater than the evaporation. A mill that will only pump enough water to irrigate one acre when applied direct from the pump, will irrigate from ten to twenty acres if the water is applied from the outlet in the reservoir. The advantage gained is found in the pushing power of the water when rapidly discharged from the reservoir at a rate of from two to three cubic feet a second, or at the same rate in gallons of from fifteen to twenty-two gallons a second. By this method but little water is lost. The land lying a quarter of a mile from the plant will receive almost as much as the tract directly adjoining the mill. When the reservoir is nearly empty the gate is closed, and it is filled by the same process and repeated on another portion of the farm.

Verily, the age of prayer for rain has been relegated to the dark past.

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NEVE

GOLD AND SILVER WEST

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It

EVER before in the history of the United States has there been such general and widespread interest and excitement in gold discoveries in the West. extends all over the country, and the cablegrams indicate that it is felt all over the world. This furore is created by the new finds in Colorado alone-or the reported new finds in Colorado-and if a one hun

dredth part of what is claimed for Cripple Creek, West Creek, Leadville, etc., eventually pans out, it is all sufficient to startle the world. But the daily papers of the great Central and Eastern cities are not publishing all the news-or all the reports -from the West. For some reason or other they confine the sensation to Colorado mining stocks. The newspapers of every Western State and Territory are announcing new discoveries. The Nebraska press announces important new finds of gold and silver and, “a rival for Cripple Creek" is claimed for Fremont county, Wyoming. Utah announces a "world's gold wonder in the Mercur mines," on Herschel' ground; immense shipments of gold are announced from the De Lamar mines in Nevada, gold and opals in Idaho; a big strike of yellow metal in Bill Williams mountains in Arizona; new gold finds in California; a ten-foot solid vein of silver in the Old Dominion mines in Washington; a wonderfully rich gold strike at Monument Rock in the Santa Fé Canyon in New Mexico; a big silver mine in Texas, as well as gold reports from Alaska, and the discovery of an eighty-foot ledge of gold in Vancouver!

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There are skeptics, notwithstanding all the excitement, and they are among the politicians and the investors. These people are prospecting about to learn the true inwardness of what they are pleased to term the "boom." The politicians of the gold side look wise, and say “I told you so,' ," while the silver men hint that "all this talk of a flood of gold is part of some scheme to silence the silver clamor throughout the country and in Congress, it being taken for granted that the people, believing the reports in full, will conclude

that with the bringing out of all this gold, the value of gold and silver must become more equalized. They say it seems to them "as if the boom was intended to be wholly gold, and to be for Colorado alone, but the other States and Territories became jealous and filed their claims,' the reports of silver from Washington, Nebraska and Texas coming from newspapers which saw through the conspiracy.

Investors say that while they have no inclination at all to deny the truth of the reported discoveries in Colorado, they know that for a year past promoters have been preparing to spring the boom which has finally come.

The Chicago Stock Exchange has refused to list mining shares, but a Chicago Mining Exchange has been determined upon, with men of capital and reputation as its incorporators. Another institution, perhaps of greater importance, is also to be established, and such men as ex-Governor John M. Palmer suggest and father it. This latter is a rendezvous where miners and others who have valuable claims but possess no capital, may meet capitalists willing to advance funds for the purpose of developing such properties- after an investigation has been made.

Chicago is going into this Western mining development, not only in Colorado but in the other States and Territories, but, so far as the large investors are concerned, they will not go into it blindly. As to the Mining Exchange, the opening of the board is actually dreaded, for it is foreseen that excitement and speculation must run wild. Delegations of ladies and clergymen exerted their influence against the listing of mining shares on the Stock Exchange but they have failed in their crusade against the Mining Exchange.

No one doubts the existence of untold gold and other minerals in our Western States and Territories, and if these mining properties are thoroughly worked it will be proved that we have Kaffirs of our own. Whatever the truth or falsity of recent reports of great new finds, the "boom" is proving an advertisement that will at

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