Newspapers / The Echo (Pisgah Forest, … / March 1, 1951, edition 1 / Page 8
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ABOVE: This 100-acre storage yard of California Central Fibre Corporation con tains over 35,000 tons of baled flax straw. Fibre from this straw is the raw material for cigarette paper manufacture here at Ecusta. Photo courtesy of Spence Air Photos. costing about 75 cents per acre. Flax requires about 8 irrigations costing 75 cents per acre for each irrigation. The actual amount of water required depends upon soil texture, drainage and season conditions. Moisture control is almost 100 per cent with minor upsets by an occasional light rain in midwinter. The Valley’s annual rainfall is less than 4 inches. Wild plant life in the uncultivated desert regions promptly responds to these very light rain falls. Wide areas between Palm Springs and Yuma were blanketed with verbena, primrose, and other desert flowers in February of 1949, following a Water in the Valley is handled by the Imperial Irrigation District, which is a public corporation managed by elected officers. The Imperial Irriga- general rain throughout this region, tion District is maintained with revenue from the sale of water and electric power, a portion of the power being generated in hydro-electric plants located on the All-American Canal. Taxes levied against real estate within the District is another source of revenue. FEW FARMING HAZARDS The Irrigation District’s crop survey of March 15, 1950 showed 612,658 acres in the irrigated area of the District, with 519,583 acres being des ignated as "farmable area.” This land of eternal sunshine, which has vir tually no rainfall, is perhaps one of the safest farming regions in the United States. Danger from frost is negligible and damage from plant diseases and insects is held to a minimum by planting dis- ease-resisting crop varieties and by judicious use of insecticides. Crop failures are almost unheard of. Soil drainage is one of Imperial Valley’s princi pal farm problems. The land is inherently fertile and depleted soils can quickly be rehabilitated with fast growing cover crops, such as Sesbania, but many fertile fields soon become marginal with salt deposits unless proper soil drainage is main tained. Many gravity drain ditches traverse the Valley, and the Imperial Irrigation District is con-
The Echo (Pisgah Forest, N.C.)
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March 1, 1951, edition 1
8
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