stock-raising so developed that these would constitute by far the gTeatest
productive occupation in the land to which they had hurried. Most of
them assumed that the full resources of the soil were represented by the
thin and mainly harsh verdure they saw growing upon it.
In the years 1860 and '61 there was relatively a large increase in the
acreage put under cultivation by Colorado's pioneer farmers; but during
the period of the Civil War further development was at a slow pace. The
population had lessened, and perils threatened by hostile Indians tight-
ened the brake on progress. Yet even at the close of our great civil con-
flict there were many people who believed that farming in Colorado never
would afford remunerative employment for more than a very small portion
of the Territory's inhabitants, and only to such as were in exceptionally
6o-? HISTOEY OF COLORADO
favorable localities. It is true that the unirrigated land presented a dis-
couraging appearance to those unfamiliar with the effects of turning water
upon it. Concerning its asjoeets and other natural conditions. Samuel
Bowles, in his book entitled Across the Continent, the material for which
he gathered in 1865, records his impressions as follows :
' ' The burden laid upon all agriculture, the absolute want of all horticulture, as
yet in all this country, are among its serious drawbacks. The winds, the sun, the
porous yet unfriable soil, the long seasons of no or inadequate rain, leave all vegeta-
tion gray and scanty, except it is in direct communication with the water-courses.
Trees T\all not live in the house yards, house owners can have no turf, no flowers, no
fruits, no vegetables — the space around the dwellings in the towns is a bare sand
relieved only by infrecjuent mo.sses and weeds. The grass is gray upon the plains;
cotton-wood and sappy pine are almost alone the trees of the mountain region ; no
hardwood is to be found anywhere ; and but for the occasional oases by the streams,
and the rich flowers that will spring up on the high mountain morasses, tlie country
would seem to the traveler nearly barren of vegetable life. ' '
Between the summer of 1865 and that of 1870 the number of Colo-
rado's people increased from about 25,000 to 40,000. This expansion of
population, together with the improved general conditions, gave a healthy
stimulation botli to concern in and extension of agriculture in the Terri-
tory. The following estimate of the quantity and value of Colorado's farm
products in the middle year of that period (1868), formed by Dr. W. E.
Thomas, then an editorial writer in Denver, indicates the- progress that
was being made, and also may be of interest to the reader by way of com-
parison with present-time results :
Crop. Yield, bu. Price, bu. Value.
Wheat 504,904 $1.80 $1,098,667.20
Oats and barley 462,103 1.20 .5.i4,.529.60
Corn 4.1.5,430 1.10 500,973.00
Potatoes 492.894 .75 369.670.50
Hay and dairy products 250,000.00
Total value $2,683,840.30
Up to the end of tliat decade, planting and harvesting in the Terri-
tory was confined to the upper section of the plain.'j-valley of the Arkansas
Eiver; to small areas in the San Luis Valley; and to districts on the South
Platte and its tributaries, near the foot-hills. Practically all of the sec-
tion lying westward of the Continental Divide still was in a wild condition.
The completion of railroads to Denver, in 1870, greatly invigorated
agriculture, as it did every other vocation m the Territory. The begin-
ning of the railroad era was conspicuously marked by the coming of several
large bodies of colonists formed to settle in localities that could be made
fruitful by irrigation, and of which movement the history has been nar-
rated in a preceding chapter of tliis volume. Although the members of
these organizations, as well as the many other farmer-immigrants of that
period who migrated independently, met with some backsets, they and
nearly all of the earlier tillers of Colorado soil had become prosperous by
the time in which the Territory was transformed into a State of the Union.
The possibilities of agriculture by the aid of irrigation in the Pike's Peak
country now had been demonstrated abundantly, and the only remaining
question in connection with it was that of its further extension — a work
that has l^een carried forward bravely, steadily, and with most remarkable
results, from the year of Statehood on to the present time, and which is
yet far from its completion.
HISTOEY OF COLOEADO 553
The boundaries of Colorado embrace about 66,500,000 acres of land.
Some twenty millions of these form the plains section of the State, east
of the Bocky Mountains, while the remaining 46,500,000 are divided
between the mountain area proper, the valleys of the Eio Grande and San
Juan rivers, and the ''Western Slope."' But in the mountains there are
valley-like depressions, known as "parks," which are not only beautiful
places, but productive of crops suited to their elevated situation.
The soils of Colorado ciiiefiy are of granitic origin, having been formed
by the disintegration of rocks. Usually they are rich in jDotash and phos-
phoric acid, and contain an appreciable quantity of organic matter, which
three elements are the great essentials to plant-life. To those not familiar
with them, our soils, brown and bare as they are in their natural condition,
seem unfertile. But as the country has not had frequent heavy rains, they
have not been leached of their plant-food, and therefore their holdings of
this material represent the accumulations of ages, and also the results of
refining processes that have rendered it more easily available to plant-life.
All that these soils need to make them exceedingly productive is a supply
of water sufficient to their irrigation. In consequence of the varying rock-
formations from flhich they were mainly derived and of the intersection
of different drifted detritus, they range in their constitution from gravelly
or sandy soils to sandy and to heavy clay loams, the latter being commonly
known as "adobe," which carries a large proportion of fine clay, and from
which the ]\Iexican and some of the American pioneers of Colorado made
bricks for building-purposes, by the simple process of drying them in the
sixn after moulding. All of these soils have agricultural value, but the
successful cultivation of each must be by methods best adapted to its peculi-
arity, and also must vary with altitude.
Colorado's drainage is to each of the cardinal points of the compass.
The waters of the eastern slope are carried off and find their way into the
Gulf of Mexico by the systems of the Arkansas and South Platte rivers;
the Xorth Park, comparatively a small area, is drained by the jSTorth Platte,
which locally flows nortliward, and after making a long detour joins the
South Platte in western Xebraska, where the two form the beginning of
the Platte Eiver proper ; the Western Slope by the systems of the Green
and Grand rivers, which, at their union in Utah, become the great Eio
Colorado; while in the south, west of the Sangre de Cristo Eange, and in
the southwestern section of the State, the outflow respectively is by way of
the Eio Grande and the San Juan rivers, the latter being an afHuent of
the Eio Colorado.
In his recent Handbook of Colorado Resources, Thomas Tonge classi-
fies elevations in the State and estimates their respective areas as follows :
Sq. Miles. Acres.
From 3,000 to 4,000 feet 4,90n 3,136.000
" 4,000 to 5,000 " -I-IJIM 14,51^8,000
' ' 5,000 to 6,000 " 17,100 10,944,000
" 6,000 to 7,000 " 12,725 S.244,000
" 7,000 to 8,000 " ]3,5iMi 8,640,000
' ' 8,000 to 9,000 " 11,5(11) 7.369,000
" 9,000 to 10,000 " 8,600 5,504.000
Above 10,000 feet 1 2,900 8,296,000
Totals 103,925 66,652.000
554 HISTOEY OF COLOEADO
The agricultural lands of Colorado convenieutly may be considered as
being divided into three classes, viz : those lying not higher than six thou-
sand feet, and requiring irrigation; those at elevations above six thousand
feet, and requiring irrigation; and those lying below six thousand feet,
which may be cultivated without irrigation.
Those of the first-mentioned that are upon the Eastern Slope, and
which include the tracts first farmed by our American pioneers, lie along
the Arkansas and South Platte rivers and their branches; those upon the
AVestern Slope skirt the channels of the Grand, Gunnison, and Uncom-
pahgre rivers, as well as the courses of the aflluents of these streams; and
in the southwestern section of the State there are such lands in the valleys
of the Eio los Animas and other tributaries of the Eio San Juan. Upon
maps of common size that show these lands so colored as to indicate that
they are cultivable under irrigation they appear as narrow fringes on both
sides of the streams. But their area is much larger than it seems in a
glance at such maps.
From Canon City, where the Arkansas Eiver emerges from the Eoyal
Gorge, the immediate valley of that stream broadens until, at Pueblo, it
has a breadth of several miles. Here the river receives the outflow of the
Fountain Eiver, from which tributary the extensive tracts that are under
cultivation along its course between Colorado Springs and Pueblo are
irrigated. In the vicinity of Pueblo there are- many thousands of acres
that are regularly planted to garden vegetables, and some of the farmers
in that locality devote their attention and energy entirely to the production
of celery, asparagus, cauliflower and cabbage. Eocky Ford, in the middle
section of the valley, is the center of the melon-growing and honey-pro-
ducing industries. But the most important agricultural products of the
Arkansas Yaliey are sugar-beets, to which large areas are devoted. For
the extraction of the sugar from these vegetables there are factories at
Eocky Ford, Sugar Cit}', Swink, Las Animas, Lamar and Holly, the larger
of which being at Eocky Ford. Barley and oats, as well as winter grain,
figure rather largely in the agricultural operations in the valley, but in
most sections of it the irrigated lands are too valuable to be planted to
corn, aJtliough crops of that cereal yielding from twenty-five . to sixty
bushels per acre have been grown.
The farmers of the Arkansas Valley now are practicing a general
rotation of crops, such as location, soil, and market-prospects suggest, com-
monly using alfalfa as the basis of this process. Many of them find it
advantageous financially, beside maintaining the fertility of their land, to
feed their alfalfa and grain to cattle and hogs. According to the report
of the State Engineer, for the year 1908, the aggregate of the areas in the
Arkansas Valley that were cultivated in that year, including those given
to fruit-trees and native grasses, was 439,415 acres.
The agricultural section of northern Colorado, east of the mountains,
lies in the drainage basin of the South Platte Eiver, but the greater part
of it is in the triangle defined by the cliannel of that river, the base of the
foot-hills and the course of the Cache a la Poudre Eiver. The more impor-
tant of the South Platte's tributaries that flow through this triangle are
Clear and Boulder creeks, and the St. Vrain, Little Thompson and Big
Thompson rivers. It has been said truly that this three-cornered area
"is the heart of Agricultural Colorado, with every advantage of soil, water,
HISTORY OF COLORADO 555
climate, markets, and transportation ; with every privilege of an advanced
social, religious, educational and industrial development; and with eTery
facilitj- for continued growth and progress along the highest plane of
modern civilization." The area of the land now cultivated in this trian-
gular district is the equivalent of about 600,000 acres, nearly one-half of
which is irrigated by water drawn from the Cache a la Poudre, the length
of which from the place in which it breaks away from the foot-hills to its
confluence with the South Platte is some twenty-five miles. But along this
part of its course there are eighty-four reservoirs that receive their supply
of water from the stream. It has been estimated that since the introduc-
tion of irrigation into the Poudre Valley the latter's farm-lands have
yielded to their owners about fifty million dollars" worth of produce.
The soil of the Poudre Valley is exceedingly fertile ; and for an example
of the magnitude of its rewards to an intelligent and industrious farmer
I shall cite the results accomplished by one residing in the neighborhood of
the city of Port Collins. In 1906, this man, tilling a rented farm of 320
acres, realized from his crops grown in that year — hay, wheat, and sugar-
tieets— the gross sum of $14,817. His rental was $3,000: his expenses,
including the cost of hired labor, were about $5,000. Therefore his net
profits were nearly $7,000. It may be proper to add that he converted his
hay and beet-tops — the latter having a forage-value equal to that of alfalfa
— into mutton by feeding them to a flock of lambs numbering 3,600 head.
When, in the year 1900, this thrifty planter first became a tenant. of the
fann he cultivates he was in debt some two thousand dollars. At the time
of this writing his net accumulations from his operations upon it amount
to about fifteen times the sum of his former indebtedness.
The great development of sugar-beet culture in Colorado, which has
done so much to improve our irrigated lands, to increase their value, 1x)
stimulate more thorough farming, and to demonstrate the extent to which
intensive cultivation of soil may be carried on in our State, is a work of
recent years. Although some sugar-beets had been grown in Colorado before
the panic year of 1893, the acreage planted to them was small and the
harvest was used as food for stock. It was not until 1899 that the sugar-
making industry was introduced into the State, in which year a sugar-
factory was built at Grand Junction, and crops of beets for its supply of
raw material were raised by farmers living in the section tributary to that
city. In the next year, fanners in the localities of Rocky Ford and Sugar
City followed the example of their brethren of the Western Slope, while
factories were being constructed at those towns. In 1901, a sugar-factory
was erected at Loveland, and beets suflficient to its requirements were grown
by farmers in the neighborhood. Since that year, twelve other factories
have been built. Eight of these are in the drainage basin of the South
Platte, respectively at Eaton, Greeley, Windsor, Longmont, Fort Collins,
Sterling, Fort ]iIorgan, and Brush. The others are in the Arkansas Valley,
and have already been mentioned; the one at Las Animas, erected in 1907,
being the latest addition to the facilities for producing refined sugar. The
aggregate capacity of the sixteen establishments, which operate during the
autumn and winter months, is about ten thousand tons of beets per day;
and their annual disbursements in cash, to beet-growers and for labor and
expenses directly connected with their operation, total nearly seven million
dollars. It was believed in the bewinnino; bv some farmers that beets soon
5.-h; HI8T0EY OF COLOEADO
would exliaust. the soil and leave it in a viseless condition. But this has
not proved to be the case; and, with proper rotation of crops, there is no
sound reason for anticipating that land adapted to sugar-beets may not
produce them indefinitely.
As indicated by the locations of the various factories, the greatest
extension of this industry in Colorado has been made in the valley of the
South Platte; and in parts of this section of the State the crops of beets
have been exceptionally large, and correspondingly profitable to their
growers. In the district around the town of Hillsboro, in Weld countj',
the gross value of j-ields has ranged up to $150 per acre, the quality of
the crops being of a high grade. At the Lewis and Clark Exposition, at
Portland, Oregon, eight gold medals were awarded to Hillsboro sugar-beet
growers in comj)etition with exhibits from twelve other States in which
beet-sugar is produced.
Culture of the potato i< another highly important feature of agricul-
ture in northern Colorado ; and, while this vegetable flourishes in most of
the other parts of tlie State, its cultivation has been made a great "specialty"
in the district of which the city of Greeley is the metropolis. It was
among the produce raised by our pioneer American settlers ; and, for a few
years, brought very high prices. A Denver newspaper, in its issue of May
23, 1860, said that "potatoes are sought after at $10.00 per bushel." Some
that were grown in the Clear Creek Valley in the summer of that year
were considered remarkable because they "measured 2i/2 inches in breadth
and -±1/2 in length." However, potato-raising in Colorado in the early
years was attended by some uncertainty and consequent disappointment, as
successes for a few seasons upon land that seemed well adapted to the
vegetable suddenly were followed by failures. Present-time results through-
out the State, that are so bountiful, have been attained by systematic and
persistent scientific study of every element of the subject.
The Greeley District long has been in the lead in the production of
the potato, and for which it has become famous far and wide. About
30.000 acres were planted to this veget-able in that district in the year 1908,
without using commercial fertilizers, and the yields over the entire field
ranged from 100 to 150 sacks (200 to 300 bushels) per acre. The average
total cost of planting, cultivating, harvesting and marketing the crop was
about $35.00 per acre. During the last ten yeai-s the average price received
for potatoes by the farmers of that district has been nearly seventy-five cents
per hundred weight; but during the last half of this period the returns
have been larger than in the first half. Some potato-growers in the State
have greatly exceeded the figures for yields that are given above, and which
are those of the run over a large area. More than 800 bushels of potatoes
have been produced, under exceptionally favorable conditions, yet without
the assistance of commercial fertilizer, from one acre of Colorado soil ; while
400 bushels are not uncommon npon farms containing tracts of ground
peculiarly suited to this vegetable.
The immediate valley of the South Platte in the plains section of
Colorado is some 225 miles in length, stretching from Platte Caiion, which
is about twenty miles southwesterly from Denver, to the northeastern corner
of the State, varying in, width from three to six miles, and having a soil
that largely is an alluvial deposit of good fertility. That part of the valley
which is in the vicinitv of Denver, and which includes the neighborhoods
HISTORY OF COLORADO k-'
of some of the capital's suburban towns, principally is given over to gen-
eral truck-farming and small fruits, with abundant and very profitable
results. In the portion of the valley lying between the Greeley district
and Julesburg, and in which the flourishing towns of Fort Morgan, Brush,
and Sterling are situated, the crops produced in the triangle to which I
have referred in the foregoing here are grown with almost as large a measure
of success. Onions figure prominently in the harvests in this part of the
valley, and to some growers of them the market value of the yield runs as
high as $600 per acre. Forty bushels of wheat, sixty of oats and barley,
250 of potatoes, twelve to fifteen tons of sugar-beets, and from four to five
tons of alfalfa hay are not rare events in this district; while fruit, berries,
melons, and honey further swell the revenues of nearly all its farms.
Several canning-establishments in northern Colorado encourage the
cultivation of sweet corn, pumpkins, squashes, and the various smaller
vegetables especially suited to their purposes; and in consequence thereof
this division of agriculture is expanding rapidly in that part of the State.
Colorado's Western Slope has Ijeen in late years the scene of a very
rapid and profitable development of general agriculture, including under
this head the industry of liorticulture. While that slope now is the
great fruil-pioducing section of the State, and is jnore widely noted for
its bountiful orchards, every kind of grain, and of root-crops and those
of other vegetables, that can be grown at elevations ranging from 4,000
to 5,000 feet, yield abundantly in all its valleys when properly cultivated.
In the year 1907, a farmer in the Uucompahgi-e Valley harvesteii
from a field of fifteen acres 736 bushels of potatoes per acre, grown between
the rows of apple trees of a young orchard, and which occupied a part of
the ground. Another, in the same valley and in the same season, produced
1,800 sacks of onions from four and one-half acres of land, the value of
the crop about $4,500. This farmer also raised in that season 13,200
bushels of potatoes on sixteen and one-half acres: 1,127 bushels of wheat
on twenty-one acres; while his oats and cabbage yielded respectively at
the rate of 114 bushels and 32,000 [jounds per acre. In the district around
the town of Palisades, on the Grand River, in Mesa County, and which
lies at an elevation of about 4,700 feet, the various fruits together with
cantaloupes are produced in great profusion, the melons rivalling those
raised in the vicinity of Rocky Ford and elsewhere in the lower part of
our section of the Arkansas Valley. This district also enjoys the distinction
of containing the most valuable farming land in the Xation, as a tract
in it was sold in the spring of lUOS at a price said to have been $4,000
per acre.
The valleys of the Western Slope are favored by Nature both in soil
and in climate, and the combined ett'ects of sunshine and careful irrigation
bring results that are highly satisfactory to the capable farmers who have
established their homes in them. Sunshine gives quality to the apple, the
peach and their kindred, to the potato, the melon, the sugar-ljeet and other
vegetaldes, and to the cultivated as well as the native forage. The farmer
with sufficient knowledge and judgment tci apply irrigation to his fields
at precisely the proper time and in the proper quantity is rewarded with
maximum crops and the premiums of the markets ; and therefore is enabled
to swell his reserve in bank at a healthful rate year by year. Thousands of
acres of good land arinuallv are lieinti added to the cultivated areas upon
558 HISTORY OF COLORADO
the Western Slope, through consummated works for irrigation that utilize
previously unappropriated waters of the streams, and that receive and hold
in store in reservoirs the surplus that is afforded when the natural waterways
are at a high stage.
As elsewhere, the cost of irrigation per acre per season on the 'West
Slope varies with the character of the soil, the crop or crops grown, the
method of distributing water that is employed, the charges fixed by the
organization which controls the systems of ditches and reservoirs that sur)ply
water, and also with the rate of precipitation and evaporation in the «ection
in which the land is situated. Fiirthermore, one farmer may not make a
given quantity of water irrigate more than forty acres, while another may
use it successfully for watering nearly twice that acreage.
I shall now turn to some consideration of agriculture in Colorado at
elevations higher than 5,000 feet above sea level. The most extensive
arable area that falls into this classification is that of the San Luis Valley,
lying between the Sangre de Cristo Range and the Continental Divide, in
the southern part of the State, with altitudes ranging from 7,000 to 8,000
feet. II is a plain, nearly level, about one hundred miles in length (from
north to south) and forty in width, embracing somewhere near two and
one-half millions of acres, and formerly was the bed of a land-locked lake.
Cultivation of its soil is almost wholly dependent on irrigation, which is
supplied by the flow of water in the Rio Grande and lesser streams in that
section of the State.
Small grains and almost every variety of vegetables, of excellent quality
and satisfactory yield, are produced in this valley. Flour made from its
spring wheat is of higli grade, and the largest knowTi average yield of pota-
toes per acre, either in Colorado or elsewhere, 794 bushels, was taken from
soil near the town of Del Xorte, the county seat of Rio Grande County, in
the year 1902. The valley also is famous for its prolific jDroductiou of the
Colorado field-pea, to which about L50,000 of its acres annually are planted.