USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 54
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 54
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 54
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3 Rept of John Pierce, in U. S. Mess. and Doc., Int. Dept, 1866-7, 2, 39, 371.
4 W. H. Lessig, in Rept Sec. Int., 1867-8, iii. 40, 2. In the following year he stated the 'common product' of wheat to be from 40 to 60 bushels per acre,
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SOIL AND CLIMATE.
which Colorado was created. The report of the land department in 1870 estimated the agricultural productions of Colorado at $3,500,000, while the bullion product was put down at $4,000,000. An abstract made in 1882 shows that in the ten previous years 2,501,318.35 acres had been purchased for cash or located with warrants,' besides the occupation of a large unknown quantity of unpurchased public lands by herdsmen.
The soil of Colorado varies with position. Its dis- tinctive characteristics are the large proportion of potash, the form in which the phosphates exist, being easily soluble in a weak acid; the low percentage of organic matter and the high proportion of nitrogen contained in the organic matter ; the large proportion of lime, and the generally readily available form of all the constituents.6 Climate is governed by alti- tude, and there are infinite modifications.7 In the
5 U. S. H. Ex. Doc., xix. no. 72, p. 146, 47, 2.
6 Upland clay loam contains: Volatile matter, 1.31; matter soluble in strong acid, 5 33; insoluble, 93.36. Adobe soil, volatile, 2.49; soluble matter, 11.40; insoluble, 86.11. Platte valley soil, volatile matter, 10.10; soluble, 2.58; insoluble, 87.32. Sandy clay loam, volatile matter, 4.23; sol- uble, 3.98; insoluble, 92.28. The volatile matter contains nitrogen; the sol- uble lime, magnesia, potash, iron-oxide, alumnia, carbon, phosphoric, acid, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, carbonic acid, chlorine, soda, etc. Colorado Soils, by T. Jamieson, Aberdeen, Scotland.
.7 William E. Pabor, associate editor of the Colorado Farmer, who has pub- lished a little book on Colorado as an Agricultural State, quotes from a state- ment concerning the soils of Utah, that they are not likely to be very different from those of Colorado, and then gives them in the following proportions: Black loam, 7,200, Sandy loam 3,800, loam and gravel 8,250, loam and clay 3,500, loam and alkali 1,200, clay and gravel 5,000, clay and plaster 3,500, alkali, iron, and sand 2,500, sand, alkali, and volcanic ash 1,000. p. 40. But this proportion is applicable only to the improved lands, and not to the whole area. The altitude of towns and cities in feet is as follows: Alamosa, 7,492; Alma, 10,254; Animas City, 6,622; Baker Mine, 11,956; Bakerville, 9,753; Black Hawk, 7,875; Boulder, 5,536; Breckenridge, 9,674; Cañon, 5,287; Caribou, 9,905; Central, 8,300; Colorado Springs, 6,023; Conejos, 7,880; Del Norte, 7,750; Denver, 5,197; El Moro, 5,886; Empire, 8,583; Evans, 4,745; Fairplay, 9,964; Fall River, 7,719; Fort Collins, 4,815; Fort Garland. 7,945; Fort Lupton, 5,027; Fort Lyon, 3,725; Frisco, 9,500; Georgetown, 8,514; Gold Hill, 8,463; Golden, 5,687; Granite, 8,883; Greeley, 4,779; Gren- ada, 3,434; Gunnison, 7,743; Hamilton, 9,743; Hermosillo, 4,723; Hot Sul- phur Springs, 7,725; Howardville, 9,527; Idaho Springs, 7,512; Jamestown, 7,123; Jefferson, 9,862; Kit Carson, 4,307; Kokomo, 10, 200; La Junta, 4,137; Lake City, 8,550; Las Animas, 3,952; Leadville, 10,247; Longmont, 4,957; Los Pinos, 9,065; Manitou, 6,297; Marshall, 5,578; Montezuma, 10,295; Nederland, 8,263; Nevadaville, 8,800; Oro, 10,704; Ouray, 7,640; Pagosa Springs, 7,108; Present Help Mine, on Mt Lincoln, 14,000; Platteville,
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AGRICULTURE AND STOCK RAISING.
valley of the Platte the soil is identical with that of the river-bottoms of the Missouri, while the uplands have a rich, warm, sandy loam. The southern val- leys are more sandy, and, of course, warmer at the same elevation than the northern. The river-bot- toms yield bountiful crops without irrigation, and the uplands even more abundantly with it. In a general sense agriculture in Colorado depends upon a judi- cious use of water supplied to the thirsty earth by artificial means ; and of irrigation I will give some account in this place. As early as 1861 the legisla- ture passed an act providing for the free use of the water of any stream on the margin of a land claim ; or if not situated upon any stream, for the right of way of a ditch through the land lying between it and the nearest water. The ditch should not be larger than necessary, nor should there be any waste of water;8 and where the stream was not large enough to supply the continuous wants of the entire country dependent upon it, a justice of the peace should appoint commissioners to apportion the water equita- bly, to settle disputes, and assess damages where they were shown to occur. The right to use a water- wheel or other machinery for raising water to a required level was granted by law, and other privi- leges and restrictions enacted.' This law was amended from time to time as a knowledge of the wants of the agriculturalists suggested, and in 1872 irrigating ditches were exempted from taxation. In 1876 a
5,690; North Pueblo, 4,713; South Pueblo, 4,676; Quartz Hill, 9,300; Rollins- ville, 8,323; Rosita, 8,500; Saguache, 7,723; Saint John, 10,807; Salt Works in South Park, 8,917; Silverton, 9,400; Steven's Mine, 11.943; Terrible Mine, 9,243; Trinidad, 6,032; Uncompahgre Agency, 6,400; White River Agency, 6,491. From this list it will be seen that only two towns are under 4,000 feet in altitude; 9 are over 4,000; 7 are over 5,000; 6 are over 6,000; 12 are over 7,000; 11 are over 8,000; 8 are over 9,000; 7 are over 10,000; 2 are over 11,000, and 1, 14,000. Fossett's Colorado, 14-15. It is needless to remark that only mining towns exist at an altitude above 7,500 feet.
8 Meline remarks in 1866, in Two Thousand Miles on Horseback, 88, that the ditches were dug too deep, at too great an incline, creating a current which washed out and deepened the water-way, and that there was conse- quently a waste of water. Probably experience taught the owners to avoid these errors.
Session Laws, 1861, 67-9.
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IRRIGATION.
law was placed on the statute book forbidding any person in the summer season to run through an irri- gating canal any greater quantity of water than abso- lutely needful for domestic purposes, the watering of stock, and moistening his land.1º Other matters, such as priority of right and association for purposes of irrigation, came up and were discussed and settled by statutes from time to time, the importance of the equal distribution of water growing more and more apparent. And not only as relating to lands usually regarded as cultivable, but as applied to a large extent of country known as arid lands, which down to a recent period had been looked upon as worthless.
This subject had engaged the attention of think- ing men in Colorado, who believed that the whole or much of the great wastes in the several states and territories west of the Missouri not sufficiently watered by rainfall might be redeemed by an inter- state system of irrigation, and for the purpose of dis- cussing and bringing the subject before the people a convention of trans-Missouri states was held at Den- ver October 15, 1873,11 at which was agitated the question of the interest of the general government in assisting to recover from sterility so great a portion of the public domain. Little resulted from the conven- tion, except the enlargement of men's ideas in the direction of scientific agriculture.12
In 1879 the department of agriculture appointed a commissioner, J. Brisbin Walker, to visit Colorado to take observations of the country preliminary to mak- ing a practical test of the value of artesian wells in furnishing water for irrigation." Government, how-
10 Colo Gen. Laws, 1877, 518; Dow's Tour in America, 103-14.
11 The convention was addressed by Gov. Elbert, through whose efforts chiefly it was brought together. See Speech of Elbert before the Convention of Trans-Missouri States, 4-8.
12 Report on the Problems of Irrigation, by William Ham Hall, state engi- neer of California, dealing with the social, political, and legal questions; the physical, practical, and technical obstacles to be overcome, with the con- struction, operation, and maintenance of irrigation works, is a most import- ant publication exhaustive of a subject still comparatively novel in the United States.
13 Denver Tribune, Nov. 13 and 22, 1879.
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AGRICULTURE AND STOCK RAISING.
ever, has been anticipated in the application of acquired information by enterprising companies, which are rapidly redeeming arid lands, and filling their coffers at the same time.
The first canals were constructed in Weld county, one at Greeley by the Union colony,14 and another at Evans, both taking water from the south Platte, and conducting it for six or eight miles among farms.
In 1877 English capitalists organized the Colorado Mortgage and Investment company, which, among other things, became interested in irrigation, organ- izing a subordinate branch at Fort Collins under the name of Larimer and Weld Irrigation company, which purchased water rights, and as much land as could be obtained, and constructed a canal over fifty miles in length. This proved a profitable investment. Water rights were sold for $2, and later for $1.50, an acre ; and the land, obtained at government or rail- road prices, brought from $13 to $15 per acre, with a perpetual water right. The High Line Irrigating
14 This canal, Hayden remarks, has too great a fall, the current being so strong that it is with difficulty forded by teams. The Union colony was organized in New York on the 23d of Dec. 1869, with 59 members, to which many others were soon added. It was a direct outgrowth of the advertising which the N. Y. Tribune gave Colorado. Horace Greeley was its prime mover and treasurer, and one of its most active agents was N. C. Meeker, also of the Tribune. It sent out a locating committee, consisting of Meeker, H. T. West, and R. A. Cameron, who, after looking over the ground, deter- mined upon the present site of Greeley, in Weld county. They purchased 12,000 acres from the Denver Pacific Railway co. and others, and made arrangements for the purchase of 60,000 acres of government and 50,000 acres railroad land within three years, at from $3 to $4 per acre, by paying interest from the date of contract. Charters were obtained for irrigating-canals cov- ering the entire area. A town was laid off at the delta formed by the Cache- la-Poudre and Platte rivers, on the line of the Denver Pacific R. R., and subdivided into 520 business lots, 25 x 190 feet in size; 673 residence lots, ranging from 50 by 190 to 200 by 190; and 277 lots reserved for public build- ings, schools, churches, etc. The adjacent lands were divided into plats of from 5 to 120 acres, according to the distance from the town centre, and each mem- ber allowed to select one, under his certificate of membership. A public square of 10 acres was reserved in the middle of the town, artificial lakes constructed, trees planted, and by June 1870 water was flowing through all the principal streets from a canal fed by the river. In 1871 the colony con- tained 350 buildings of all descriptions, 17 stores, 3 lumber-yards, 3 black- smith and wagon shops, a newspaper office, and livery-stable. The colony was not cooperative, beyond a general irrigating, fencing, and public-build- ings fund or funds. Byers' Centennial State, MS., 39-40; Saunders' Through the Light Continent, 51-3, London, 1879, Svo, 409 p.
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IRRIGATION.
canal of the Platte Land company, another foreign organization's work, is a still longer and larger canal to irrigate the high plains east, south-east, and north- east of Denver, by making a wide detour, in some places constructing tunnels, and in others flumes. The cost in 1884 had reached two and a half million dol- lars. It is thirty-six feet wide on the bottom, and seven feet deep for the first thirty miles, after which it gradually narrows and shallows. It is intended to water 300 square miles of territory. The Northern Colorado Irrigation company, which, at an enormous outlay, constructed eighty miles of a main line of canal, and as much more of lateral branches, com- pleted its work in 1883 ; and immediately commenced another seventy miles in length and sixty feet in width at the bottom, extending from about Pueblo to La Junta, in the neighboring county of Bent, and taking water from the Arkansas river. Still another corporation is the San Luis Park Irrigating company of New England capitalists whose canals will irrigate 500,000 acres.“ The Larimer and Weld company are also constructing a dam on the north Poudre, which will supply water to land a thousand feet higher than the valley of the stream. Obviously so exten- sive a system of irrigation, involving such expendi- ture, and affecting so many rights and interests, must become the subject of even more careful legislation in the future than in the past. 16
The undulations of the plains in Colorado make irrigation and cultivation easy. The water supplied at the upper side of the land is caused to flow gently from a trench or furrow, in which frequent breaks are
15 It is estimated that 65,000 gallons annually are required to properly irrigate one acre. Descriptive America, May 1884, p. 6. It is also ascertained that land which has once been thoroughly soaked, except where very porous and gravelly, requires less water than at first, and often becomes so wet as to require drainage.
16 I find in Dow's Tour in America, Melbourne, 1884, p. 113, some sugges- tions on this subject. He remarks that, 'For want of such laws the progress of irrigation in California is seriously impeded.' Dow's book is a sensible record of observations on the agriculture and resources of the U. S., neither fulsome nor grudging. He was a special commissioner of the Australasian.
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AGRICULTURE AND STOCK RAISING.
made in the lower rim, slowly moistening the surface of a field, which in two or three days is ready for the plough. Cereals require to be watered only once or twice in a season. Much has been said about the amount of irrigable land in Colorado, which has been estimated from 1,250,000 to 3,000,000 acres, of which in 1882 only about 100,000 acres were in use.17 In 1889 it was estimated that there were at least 6,000 miles of main irrigating canals, with lateral branches of much greater length.
The principal grain-producing counties of Colorado at the present are five, Arapahoe, Boulder, Jefferson, Larimer, and Weld, although with the progress of canals it is not safe to claim priority for any. Doubt- less by the time my pages are in print some of the southern counties will have become powerful rivals of the northern belt. But as I prefer to keep to the records of the state agriculturists for statements here given, what is unknown is left to conjecture. The five counties here mentioned produced in 1881, 980,- 000 bushels of wheat, and 66,000 bushels of corn. In 1882 four of the same counties produced 1,158,820 bushels of wheat, and 186,000 bushes of corn. The crops of barley, oats, potatoes, hay, alfalfa, and vege- tables were in proportion. The value of the yield of five counties in 1881 was $1,771,750 ; of four counties in 1882 it was $3,047,750. The increase is without question due to the greater facilities for irrigation, which in 1883 had more than doubled the cultivable area of 1882.18 The total value of all the crops of the state in 1882 was $8,947,500.
Iī Pabor, in Colorado as an Agricultural State, 58, after 12 years of per- sonal observation, publishes answers to the question, Is Colorado an agricul- tural state ? in the affirmative, describing the various farming localities, and giving facts regarding the culture of grains, fruits, and vegetables, with an account of irrigation, its expense to the individual, etc.
18 I have the Agricultural Statistics of the State of Colorado, pp. 16, for 1883, before me, a pamphlet issued by the state board of agriculture. From its tabulated report I gather that the amount of land in the whole state under irrigation in 1883 was 416,594 acres; the number of acres in pasture, 1,367, - 255; in oats, 33,684 acres, yielding 925,029 bushels; in barley, 6,179 acres, yielding 112,761 bushels; in rye, 1,628 acres, yielding 20,343 bushels; in corn,
541
FRUIT GROWING.
The natural fruits of a country cannot be relied upon as indications of what the land will produce under cultivation. Colorado presented to the first explorers only a worthless thorn-apple; a rare but pleasant flavored plum; small, acid gooseberries, of little value; a cherry which was rather palatable; currants of black, yellow, and red varieties; with raspberries, strawberries, and whortleberries in great abundance Apples, pears, peaches, and grapes were raised in the gardens of the Mexican inhabitants of San Luis park before the settlement by Americans from the United States These fruits first appeared among the farmers on the Arkansas Strawberries began to be cultivated in 1865. The following year they brought $3 per quart.
About the same time apples, pears, and peaches were being raised from seed in the Platte valley, and grew thriftily at first, but died afterwards because their roots had penetrated below the soil to gravel and sand. Small fruits were then set out, and flourished 19 where the soil was moist at certain seasons of the year. Experience showed that where trees were irrigated in the autumn they were able to resist winter killing, which was caused not by cold, but by the drying up of the wood by the sunshine of the winter season. Upon making this discovery, about 1873, fruit trees began again to be planted, since which time there has been a steady improvement in horticulture.20 Among the first hor- ticulturalists were Joseph Wolff of Boulder, whose first orchard of three hundred trees was killed ; J W. Parker of the Cache-la-Poudre valley, J. S. Flory of St Vrain valley, Anson Rudd, and W. A. Helm of
21,763 acres, yielding 356,478 bushels; in buckwheat, 7, yielding 154 bushels; in wheat, 67,342 acres, yielding 1,419,443 bushels. A few acres of sorghum were grown in 1873 in Boulder, Bent, Delta, Fremont, Larimer, Montrose, Pueblo, and Weld counties, aggregating 67 acres, and yielding 2,366 gallons of syrup. Graybeard's Colorado, 55-7; Galveston News, Dec. 1, 1874, p. 3; Los Angeles Evening Express, Aug 4, 1884.
19 Hollister's Mines of Colorado, 424-5; Denver Mountain Herald, July 2, 1869.
20 Byers' Ceutennial State, MS., 35.
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AGRICULTURE AND STOCK RAISING,
Cañon City, and Jesse Frazier, ten miles east of Cañon, in the Arkansas valley. The state organized a horticultural society, of which D. S. Grimes was made president, and the legislature of 1883 passed an act to "encourage horticulture and forestry in Colo- rado, and to establish a state bureau of horticulture,"21 appropriating $1,000 annually toward its support. The amount of land in orchards in 1882 was given in at 2,500 acres, and the value of the fruit at $1,250,000. An agricultural society was organized in 1863, and in 1864 a charter was obtained from the legislature, with an appropriation of $500 to be expended in prizes, the society assuming the burden of erecting the build- ings and purchasing the land for a fair ground.22 Granges were established in 1874 throughout the agricultural portions of the territory, the movement being for some time a popular one, each grange hav- ing its hall for holding meetings. In Denver the granges had a commercial establishment and a flour- ing mill on the principle of cooperative societies, but they failed for want of cohesiveness.
In 1877 the State Board of Agriculture was estab- lished, and at the same session an act was passed to provide for the building and maintenance of the agri- cultural college of Colorado, the real property of which was vested in the above board, which was given control of the college and farm, and of all appro- priations for the support of the institution ; the col- lege to be built and maintained by a direct tax of one tenth of one mill on every dollar of real and personal property in the state. 23 The college was located at Fort Collins, in Larimer county, and was opened in 1879. Scholarship was made free with certain limi-
21 Colo Session Laws, 1883, 210. For statistics I have consulted Pabor's book, Rept of State Geologist, 1881-2, and Rept of the State Board of Agri- culture, 1883.
22 The incorporators were J. B. Doyle, R. Stubbs, S. Cort, Lewis Jones, H. E. Esterday, A. O. Patterson, David Gregory, R. Sopris, W. N. Byers, Thomas Gibson, F. H. Judd, J. H. Eames, Celeden Valdez and V. Wellman. Colo Session Laws, 1864, 221; Sopris' Settlement of Denver, MS., 13.
23 For the acts governing these boards, see Colo Gen. Laws, 1877, pp. 88- 90, 97-106; Colo Session Laws, 1879, 6-7.
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STOCK RAISING.
tations as to age and previous requirements. Grad- uation confers the degree of bachelor of science. Institutes are held during the winter at different points for the benefit of farmers in the vicinity, at which valuable papers are read by the faculty, who having experimented on the college farm are able to impart the result of their investigation, to those who have less time, knowledge, and facilities for experi- mental work.24
Reports are annually published by the state board of agriculture, which, with the several agricultural journals of the state, place Colorado upon an equality with the older agricultural communities in point of progressive farming.
Stock raising in Colorado has attained an impor- tance second only to mining, the estimated total value of its cattle, sheep, and other animals in 1884 being $25,090,000. I have given so particular an account of cattle raising as an industry in my History of Mon- tana that it is not necessary to repeat it here, the cus- toms and laws to which the keeping of large herds has given rise being substantially the same in both countries. The discovery of the nutritive quality of the grasses of the Platte valley was made as early as 1858, when A. J. Williams, who was among its pio- neers, not having any food for his eighteen oxen dur- ing the winter, turned them out upon an island in the Platte near old Fort Lupton to take their chances of living, or of dying by starvation. To his surprise, on visiting the island in the spring of 1859, he found them alive, sleek, and fat. But in 1847 St Vrain and Bent had driven several thousand cattle from Texas and New Mexico to the Arkansas valley, and wintered them near Bent's fort. Subsequently Maxwell and others established cattle ranchos on the streams lead-
24 The faculty consisted in 1885 of C. L. Ingersoll, president, prof. logic and pol. economy; A. E. Blount, prof. ag. and botany; Charles F. Davis, B. S., prof. chem. and physics; F. H. Williams, prof. pract. mech. and draw- ing. Pabor, Colo as an Agricultural State, 182.
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AGRICULTURE AND STOCK RAISING.
ing out of the Sierra Mojada, at the foot of the Hua- jatollas, and on the upper Las Animas. Around Canon City stock raising was begun, in a small way, about 1862-3. Beckwith brought the first large herd into Wet Mountain valley from Texas in 1872. Two herds were driven across the divide between the Arkansas and South Platte before 1866, when Wil- liams, who had not lost sight of the subject, brought 1.500 Mexican cattle into Platte valley, since which time the importation has never ceased,2 although for a number of years the business was conducted on a small scale, compared with latter investments. 26
The principal grasses on which cattle fatten are the gramma and bunch species, the former having a small seed growing on one side at a right angle to the stalk.
25 I find this statement in an extract from Out West, Sept. 1873, in The Discoverer of Pike's Peak, MS. It agrees with the statement in Williams' biography, in Hist. Denver, 627-9. Sopris mentions as the first importers of cattle from Texas John W. Allen, and Reed, whose first name seems to have been Allen. The former died at Denver in ISS1, and the latter returned to Lexington, Mo., in 1876. Thomas W., William, Andrew Wilson, and John Hitson were among the first to avail themselves of the opportunity offered to make money by raising cattle. Settlement of Denver, MS., 16. Byers men- tions J. W. Iliff. Hist. Colo, MS., 42. Later stock-men were H. S. Holly & Co., Jones Brothers, Beatty Brothers, Lane & Murray, Towers & Gudgell, Downen Brothers, H. B. Carter, R. M. Moore, and others.
26 According to Wolfe Londoner, Texas cattle were imported for beef only, and fattened on the grass of the plains. Colorado Mining Camps, MS., 10. This dictation consists of fifteen pages of type-writing, equal to 30 pages of this volume. Londoner was born in New York in 1835, came to Cal. in 1850, a boy in a sailing vessel, and went to washing dishes for $50 per month. After a time the auctioneer, Jessell, gave him employment at $150 a month. Returning home in 1855, he was sent to Dubuque, Ia, to take charge of two stores owned by his father. When the panic of 1857 came on there was a fail- ure for the Londoners, who removed to St Louis. In the course of events Wolfe found employment with A. Hanauer, later of Salt Lake, and Dold, who sent him, in 1860, to Colorado to erect a business-house in Denver, and afterward in Canon City, where they put him in charge of $50,000 worth of goods, and the finest stone building in the territory. The Baker exploring party for San Juan outfitted at this store. When business declined in Canon City, Lon- doner was sent to California gulch, then in the height of its prosperity, and when that camp was deserted, in 1866. he went to Denver. Being now pos- sessed of means of his own, Londoner engaged in merchandising with his brother, and made money. until in 1SS4 his sales amounted to $1,000,000 annually. He was elected county commissioner and chairman of the com- mittee on finance, which devolved upon him the building of the Denver court- house, which cost $300,000, the land on which it stands being worth $75,000 more. The building and furniture are the pride of Denver, and for the man- ner in which Londoner discharged his trust, the board, when he left it, 'drew up a resolution which was good enough to put on my grave when I die,' says the recipient of the testimonial.
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