Along these rivers in Colorado are some of the oldest and best developed irrigation systems in the United States. Colorado is second only to California in the extent and magnitude of her irrigation development. and there we may logically look for practical examples of what irrigation will do when it is highly specialized. The early settlers along the Cache Le Poudre. the Big Thompson. and the Platte rivers.who took Horace Greeleys advice and went West. like all other immigrants from Eastern States. attempted first to raise the grains and grasses which were common in the humid States from whence they came. but experience is a great teacher. and they soon found that the soil and climate there were especially adapted to the production of the potato. and presently the reputation of the Greeley potato. which took its name from the principal colony at Greeley. Colo.. named in honor of the great New York editor. was known the length and breadth of the land over wherever "spuds" were bought and sold. and all potatoes grown by irrigation in the Western country came to be known by the generic name of "Greeleys." But the continual cropping of the Colorado farm with wheat and potatoes exhausted it as rapidly as the same treatment exhausts the lands of Pennsylvania or Virginia. and something had to be found to renew the quality of the soil or their entire industry was ruined. So these intelligent farmers turned their attention to finding some sort of clover that could be profitably grown in that countrythat wonderful leguminous plant so invaluable to the farmer because it has the unique quality of storing the soil with the nitrogenous matter so essential to the growth of other plants while yet producing a valuable crop itself.
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immigrants