The United States Department of Agri culture tried experiments with Egyptian cotton, and now many thousand acres of this cotton are grown each year in the Imperial Valley, and in the Salt River Valley, near Phoenix, Arizona. This productive valley, once desert, now has a rich agriculture much like that of the Imperial Valley, since it has been irrigated by the waters from the famous Roosevelt dam. (Fig. 130.) All of the cotton now grown in this valley has come from the seed of one extra fine Egyptian cotton plant that grew there in 1910. Because this cotton has such long fibers, it is used for auto mobile tires, and sells for a big price. The Salt River Valley produces good oran ges, grapefruit, and olives.
Many of the farm labor ers in this region are Japa nese, Mexicans, and Indians. They seem to endure the hot climate better than can white settlers.
176. The east coast of the Gulf of California.— This is a low plain with steep mountains at its eastern limit. This coast plain shimmers under the blazing sun and, like the lower Col orado Valley, is nearly rainless and often bare. (Fig. 172.) In some parts there is so little rain that no streams reach the sea. They flow instead into little salt lakes or salty sand plains. Even the mountains for the first four or five thou sand feet up are hot, and bare .of all growth except cactus and scattered desert bushes. Pine forests, encouraged by the greater rainfall of the heights, cling to the high, wild slopes. The white man knows but little
of these tangled masses of mountainsides and hidden valleys, but the Indian has climbed there. Some of this wild region is still occupied by the Yaqui Indians. This brave tribe has been at war with the Spanish speaking people of Mexico for three hundred years.
An American railroad has been built the whole length of the plain and it extends on up into the plateau. (Fig. 91.) At a few places there is enough water for irrigation. where food crops for the natives, and a few early vegetables for the American market are grown. About Christmas time some tomatoes come into the United States from this frost less land. The chief freight for the railroad is the minerals, which are sometimes brought down several days' journey on backs of mules from mines in the mountains.
177. Unused resources.—Much water can be stored in some of the gorges of the Colo rado and its branches, and in the gorges of the rivers in the Mexican mountains. Great canals can lead this water out to irrigate the lowlands of the United States and Mexico. If this is done, the American Egypt will be one of the four great oases of the world. The other three are Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the upper Indus Valley. If fully used, this region will also be a land of mines where minerals can be found; and of ranches, where the pasture, though scanty, will be sufficient for sheep and goats.
A great deal of water power can be de veloped along the Colorado River.