The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 22, 1901, Page 18

18 THE COLORADO DELTA. GATION gni ol 1 his pians Congress, as 2 gr ) the land t sions f s dered its claim - ported the at ar S 1 Governments endorsing the proposed by Dr. Wozencraft, wh heading on the « i 1t was known as 1 Headi d the use of the « 1 through lower Cali- w Other Business. s the civi broke out s s aban- and Man. and water utilize them reclaiming the would the man the land and braught togethe Magnitude of the Enterprise, " gest body and b undant supply of water In io River to irrigate the same. a there are fully 500,000 acres nd that can be irrigated in the ifornia, and 300,000 acres more an be irrigated across the line in r Califor z e are two kinds of deserts—the re- able and the frreclaimable. The re- ble fiesert consists of a fertile sofl, is desert only because of its aridity. Plenty of water wiu convert such a desert tnto fe fields. The frreclaimable des- and, gravel and er be made of any application of water. a is composed of the soil to be found in the world, not even excepting the celebrated valley of the N The deposit b ht dawn b; and can ne do del most fertile <0il is a sedimentary the waters of the Colorado River while it was at work out the Grand Canyon of the Col- ora Arnother Move Made. . the atandonment of the Dr. Wo- proposition the question of re- claiming the Colorado delta was laid to t for About 1590 other attempts were made to After zencraft nearly forty years. laim this great desert, but on ac- t of the pi 1892 and other c of causes nothing was ¥ of constr complished in tiw ion until 1900, although surveys were mgde, land was purchased and a valuable property was accumulated. During the spring of 190 Mr. George ftey, having made a careful and ex- tensive examination of the entire ent prise, contracted with the California De- velopment Company for an interest in the company and undertook to deliver wa on the desert within a given time, A Competent Irrigation Engineer. Mr. George Chaffey is well known in California and in Australia as one of the leading irrigation engineers of this age. He has always managed his own enter- prises successfully, and has never man- aged enterprises-for other people. He founded Ontario and Etiwanda—two suc- cessful irrigation settlements in Southern California, and then, on the invitation extensive GEORGE SHAYTE PRES A" MANAYER OF THE mP:tlA. 3 99 SANAL of the Australlan Government, to that ceuntry and Renmark, furnishing these settlements by moth pumping plants, which cost over $300.000—eight of the centrifugal pumps having discharge pipes each four feet in diameter. it he and_established Mildura went the water 1o means of mam- All of his jrrigation entery have been successful, / Work Commenced. In April, 1900, actual menced and it has been ever since. In June;, 191, an abundant supply of water was delivered through the new canal system, crossing the international boundary line, back into the State of Cal- ifornia again, about sixty miles west of the Colorado Rliver. | During the year prior to the delivery of water the work of resurveying the public lands and laying plans for the settlement of the country progressed favorably, and at the end of the year there had been over one hundred thousand acres of land fled upon by prospective settlers elther under the desert land act or under the homestead act. A School District. In April, 1901, the Imperial School Dis- trict was formed by the Board of Super- visors of San Diego County, and in the September following a school was opened in a tent, there being as yet no oppor- tunity to bulld a schoolhouse, and in this school there were twenty-four scholars enrolled. ‘Water Reaches Imperial. ‘Water was delivered too late in the sea- son for any extensive agricultural opera- work was com- pushed rapidly THE SUNDAY CALL. AR i i\l tions, although about 1200 acres of sorghum and millet were planted so as to furnish feed for the hundreds of horses that were at work on the canal system and other hundreds of horses and cattle that would be brought into the settlements by actual settlers before any- thing could be raised in the spring of 1 This first trial of the soil and climate was eminently satisfactory. A Gigantic Enterprise. The work of colonizing and reclaiming the Colorado delta is one of the most gigantic enterprises ever attempted in California. Because of its magnitude the canal system was called the Imperial Canal and Imperial Settlements is the name by which that section of country is now known. ‘What Has Been Done. Settlers have taken possession of 125,000 acres of land and secured water rights for the same from the Imperial Canal sys- tem. This system of canals has been so far extended that water can be used this next season on practically any of the land now taken from the Government. The town of Imperial has been platted and business has been started there in good style. There is a hotel, a postoffice, a general merchandise store, a stage sta- tion, a printing office where the Imperial Press—a twelye-page paper, with four columns to the page—is printed, a church with a parsonage—a regular little, white New England church, with a spire—and the First National Bank of Imperial has been organized and will be ready for busi- ness by the fifst of next year. - The town of Calexico has also been plat- ted. It is located on the boundary line about sixteen miles south of Imperial. Here is to be found the headquarters of the California Development Company in a large, double, adobe building. A general merchandise store is also to be found here and the town only a few weeks old is growing finely. The town of Paringa is platted, but no improvements have been made there yet. It is located midway between the other two towns. § The town of Imperial is located about twenty-eight miles south of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and is connected with that road by a dally stage line. Railroads to Be Built. The Los Angeles, Imperial and Arizona Railway Company will be incorporated very soon to build @bout 400 miles of rail- road. This road is planned to be built from Yuma westward through the Impe- rial Settlements via Calexico, Paringa and Imperial toward Los Angeles, and will be either extended to that city or connected Wwith some other standard gauge rallroad that ‘will make satisfactory connection with the southern metropolis. There will then be one branch line built northward from Imperial to con- nect with the Southern Pacific, and another branch line southward from Calexico to the head of the Gulf of California. The road from the Southern Pacific to Imperial, thence to Calexico, will be graded during the coming winter and will be put in active running order soon thereafter. In addition to this rallroad enterprise, the building of which is now assured— although little has been said about {t—the people of Ban Diego are moving to build - _SORSHUM C ROP PAKTLY COT I TOLOKADO DELTA LANDD UNDER. R\AL CATAL THES 8YySTEM a raliroad eastward from that city which, when built, will give the Imperial Set- tlements another outlet to the coast. A Telephone System. A telephone line is now in operation from Flowingwell t Imperial and Calex- ico, with a branch line from Flowingwell to Iris to connect with the Western Union telegraph line. The population of the Imperfal Settle- ments during the past year has increased from practically nothing to over 1000 peo- ple, and the increase has mostly been made during the past two months, Such Is the development of what prom- ises to be one of the most noted and pro- ductive sections of this State of garden spots. Trade in Whiskers of Mice and Bears’ Eyebrows. HE business done In mouse whiskers is considerable this year, for they are used in the making of the won- derful new fly for fishermen—the “new gray gnat.” And they are expen- sive—nearly two cents per whisker. Trout rise very much better at mouse whisker flies than at the same “gnat” dressed in jinglecock hackles, which look much lie them. I The trade of artificlal fly making is the lightest-fingered business in the worla, and it is not one man or woman out of 5000 Who can learn to tie files. These tyers are remarkable for the beauty and delicacy of their. hands, and only the cleverest of fingers can deal with the “niggling” work of knotting hairs that can. hardly be seen. In making a fly the earth has to be CTOLORADO DPELTA LAMD L EFORE FECULAMATION o o @ ’ ransacked for precisely the correct feath~ ers and hairs, and one halr wrong will make all the difference. It takes an expert tier only fifteen min- utes to turn out a fly, which consists of a tiny hook, with wings of Egyptian dove feather, legs of fox halr and a body of mouse fur, wound round with a thread of yellow silk. A carelessly made fly will have neither legs nor “fedlers,” but the true expert adds the legs and puts on & pair of long ‘“feelers” of cat halr, white at the tips. All these tiny details will bs exactly in their places and so finely tled to the hook that the fly will take half a dozen strong fish and be none the worse. Bear's eyebrows, being stiff, and ex- actly the right shade, are used in a new- ly invented fly that is killing quantities of salmon this year, and these eyebrows come from the Himalayan brown bear and cost about §150 per set. Thers are always agents all over the world search- i#g tropical forests for the right birds to supply fly hackles, and one of the most sought after skins is that of the rare “green screamer,” an African bird, about the size of a fowl, which has a tiny bunch of feathers on each shoulder that is worth $15 per bunch to the fiymaker. One of these birds only supplies feathers enough for half a dozen flies. Numbers of men spend their lives—and lose them, too—in collecting the right kinds of birds for fiy feathers e 2Y ho limit to the enthusiasm of Thero is an artistic fly tier, who will Useflha‘, s o from his own extra special fly. sought after mater yellow nd one curl s fl There are many s who pay $3000 a Cincinnati Ba- shade—golden salmon flles dozen t salmon and trout f year for their files alone. quirer.