A REMARKABLE HARVEST-FIELD
The most remarkable harvest-field in the United States, if not in the
whole world, is located in the heart of the Colorado Desert. The spot
is known as Salton, and it lies 265 feet below the level of the sea.
The crop which is harvested is salt. So plentiful is the natural
deposit of this necessary article that it is plowed with gang-plows, is
scraped into windrows as hay is raked in the field, and, like hay, it
is stacked into heaps from the windrows and is then loaded into wagons
and later into cars to be carried to the reduction works three miles
away.
There are about one thousand acres in this saline field. When one looks
upon this glittering, sparkling, and scintillating field, which lies
like a great patch of snow dropped down into the midst of the burning
sands of the plain, he is reminded of that passage of Scripture which
says:
"Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already
to harvest."
[Illustration: PLOWING SALT IN COLORADO DESERT]
This field is literally white to harvest and a most phenomenal harvest
it is. Over a briny, oozy marsh lies a crust of salt six to sixteen
inches thick. As often as removed, the crust quickly forms again, so
that crop after crop is taken from the same ground. In fact, although
these harvests have been going on nearly twenty years, and two thousand
tons of marketable salt are annually taken from the beds, but ten acres
of the one-thousand-acre field have been broken.
The laborers employed in breaking up the salt crust, in loading the
salt onto the wagons and taking it to the mills, in cleaning and
preparing it for the market, are mostly Japanese and Indians. In the
summer season the temperature reaches 130 to 140 degrees at Salton, and
white men are unable to endure the work exposed to the burning rays of
the sun.
The ease with which the salt is procured in this field makes it a
valuable one. At very little expense the salt is made ready for market,
and it brings from six to thirty-six dollars per ton, according to the
grade.
The Coachella Valley, in which this great field of salt lies, is ninety
miles long and from ten to thirty miles wide. Its one thousand six
hundred square miles of territory lie wholly below the level of the
sea, its greatest depression being 275 feet. The southern portion of
the valley is devoid of vegetation, save where irrigation has been
introduced, but about the northern portion of the valley the sage and
mesquite have obtained a foothold in the sandy soil. Near Indio, in the
northern portion of the valley, an artesian well was drilled a few
years ago and a copious supply of water was obtained. Now more than two
hundred and fifty of those wells are pouring their waters over the
thirsty soil, and a large tract of land has been brought into a high
state of cultivation. The lands about the salt-fields, however, are too
strongly impregnated with salts and alkali to offer any inducements to
the rancher now or in the future. The constant harvest of salt,
however, is a rich enough return for the lands thus unfitted for
agriculture.
This desert salt is remarkable for its fine quality. An analysis made
in San Francisco shows its constituents to be as follows: Chloride of
sodium, 94.68 per cent.; calcium sulphate, .77 per cent.; water, .75
per cent.; magnesium sulphate, 3.12 per cent.; sodium sulphate, .68 per
cent.; total, 100 per cent.
Until 1901, the title to the Salton lands was vested in the Government,
and the company which was reaping the harvest had no title to the
property and no legal right thereto. There is an interesting story
connected with the change of title.
This concern, the Liverpool Salt Company, had a competitor for the salt
trade of the Pacific coast in the Standard Salt Company. The Salton
fields are reached by means of the Southern Pacific Railway, which road
has the handling of all the product of the salt-fields. The Standard
Company alleged that the railroad people discriminated against it in
the way of freight rates, excluding the Standard people from the coast
markets, and thus securing a monopoly of the trade for the Liverpool
Company. This led the managers of the Standard Company to look into the
titles of the salt-fields. It was then discovered that the company
operating was without title, and that the lands were unallotted
Government lands.
The attention of the Government officials was called to the fact that
the Liverpool people were trespassers, and an order was issued for the
company to vacate. A bill was then introduced in Congress providing for
filing claims upon saline lands, and the bill passed the Senate
January 22, 1901. It yet required the signature of the President to
make it a law, however, and it was then that matters became interesting
in the desert.
Both companies congregated men on the lands adjoining the salt-fields,
prepared to race to the choice portion of the field to stake claims the
moment the wire should apprise them of the signing of the bill. Each
company had an agent in Washington ready to telegraph the news the
instant it became known, and each company had a man at the telegraph
station at Salton, three miles from the field, to take the message to
the men the moment it came.
The Liverpool Company felt confident of winning the race, for the
company owned a spur track from the main line of the railroad to the
salt-fields, and upon this line was placed a hand-car, manned ready to
pull for the fields the instant the dispatch should arrive. This car
could easily outstrip the fleetest horse, the yielding sands making it
impossible for a steed to make rapid progress.
The manager of the Standard Company, however, did not depend upon horse
speed, mule speed, or car speed. There are in Southern California an
average of 316 cloudless days each year. He pinned his faith to the
weather, and his confidence was not betrayed.
At 2.45 o'clock, the afternoon of January 31st, two telegrams arrived
at Salton at about the same time. One was for the manager of the
Liverpool Salt Company and the other was for the manager of the
Standard Salt Company. The contents of the telegrams were identical.
They told that the President had signed the bill which opened the lands
in the salt-field to entry. In a moment the hand-car was off, the men
pumping for dear life. Before they had gone a dozen rods there shot
from the station a blaze of light--a message flashed by mirrors held in
such a manner as to catch and reflect the rays of the sun. To the
watchers three miles away, who were waiting for the signal, which had
been prearranged, it was as though the station had burst into flame. At
the sight of this signal the men rushed to the salt-fields and set the
stakes and posted the notices required by law. When the hand-car men
arrived it was all over, and there was nothing for them to do but to
return and swallow their chagrin.
After the triumph of the Standard Company in this peculiar race, a
compromise was effected whereby the Liverpool Company, which owned the
mills and apparatus and the spur track, and all other equipments for
the operating of the field, resumed the ownership of the field, and the
Standard Company was granted concessions which placed them on an equal
footing with their competitors in the markets on the coast.
In June, 1891, the laborers at Salton were treated to a surprise. They
found the country filling up with water from an unknown source. A great
deal of apprehension was felt, as it was thought that the water
undoubtedly came from a crevasse which had been opened communicating
with the sea. If such were the case it was to be expected that Salton
would soon be 265 feet under water, for water seeks its level.
The flow of water continued till an area ten miles wide by thirty miles
long was covered to a depth of six feet; then it was ascertained that
the water was coming in from the Colorado River, which had risen above
its banks and was cutting a channel across the desert, threatening to
convert a large section of the Coachella Valley into an inland sea.
This inundation was caused by the co-equal rise of the head waters of
the Colorado and Gila rivers. The waters of the lower Colorado rose
five feet above high-water mark and continued to pour its waters into
the desert till the flood subsided. After the flood had abated, the
sands of the desert and the fiery sun soon drank up the lake thus
suddenly formed.
Inquiry brought forth the information that a similar inundation had
taken place in 1849. At that time, however, the waters subsided before
so large a lake had been formed.
It was these inundations which gave birth to the idea of converting a
part of the waters of the Colorado into an irrigating canal for the
purpose of reclaiming the lands of the valley.