OCR Text |
Show PBODUCTIONfr- WUTAH VALLBY.* 141 of the . mountains, beyond which the water does not reach. The extensive plains between the mountain, ranges, although composed of soil nearly equal in fertility, are at present useless for the purposes of agriculture,, from the w a t of water. The smallneas of the area suitable Cor cultivation is, hotrever, compensated by the prodigious productiveness of the soil, which, together with the oli-n\ ate, is peculiarly favourable, to the growth of wheat, barley, oats, and all the cereal grains. I brought with hie, for distribution, a portion of a crop of wheat, yhicl\ had produeed, upon three and one-half acres of ground, the enormous ^ rield of one hundred atad eighty bushels, from a' single bushel of seed. In situations peculiarly favourable for watering, the average yield of all lands properly cultivated may be very safely estimated at forty bushels. Maize^ or Indian corn, has not aa yet proved so. successful, owing to the early frosta occasioned by the vicinity of the mountains; but beets, tm> nips, melons, and especially potatoes, exceed in increase evenr the most sanguine anticipations. The quality of the latter is fully equal, If not superior, to the best Nova Scotia varieties. ' ' ' On the eastern side of the Salt Lake Valley, the land susceptible of irrigation stretches along the western base of the Wahsatch Mountains, from about eighty miles north of Salt Lake City to about/ sixty south of it, the latter portion embracing, toward its terminus, the. fertile valley of Lake Utah. This is a beautiful sheet of pure frish w& ter, thirty miles in length, and about ten in breadth, surrounded on three sides * by rugged mountains and lofty . hills, with a broad grassy valley sloping to the water's edge, opening to the northward. Through this opening flows the river Jordan, by which its waters are discharged into the Great Salt, . Lake. . The lake Abounds in fine fish, ' principally speckled trout, of great size and exquisite flavour, wnich afford sustenance to numerous sniall bands of Utahs. •• - The Jordan, in its passage, cuts through a cross range of mountains that divides the two valleys, making a deep cafion, in which are rapids. At most seasons of the year a skiff can be safely ~ floated dolm these boiling waters, if managed with sufficient skill to ayoid striking the projecting rocks- The fall continues abrupt for one mile, and the river could bore bo led. along, the escarpment of the western hills as far as to a point opposite the mouth of the Little Cottonwood, and thence on a curve to Spring Point, at the north end of- the Oquirrh Mountain, thus probably bringing under irrigation about eighty square- miles of fertile- land. |