Beyond the West: containing an account of two years' travel in the other half of our great continent far beyond the old West, on the plains, in the Rocky mountains, and picturesque parks of Colorado. Also, characteristic features of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho ... Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and ... California, the end of the West ... the great continental railroad, together with the ... most wonderful natural scenery in the world .../ by George W. Pine.

CHIIAPTER XVL
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES OF COLORADO.
On my first visit to this country in i865, after extensive traveling over it, I came to the conclusion
that this country was not by nature agricultural, and
could not be made so, by the well applied labor of
the husbandman. Then Denver stood naked on
the plain, not even a lonely tree to shade it from the
sun, neither a home garden, and the whole surrounding country one great barren waste, except for pasturage. But the almost wonderful change that had
been made between my first and second visits, only
a few short years, compelled me to quite change my
first impressions. Extensive water ditches had been
made from the mountains to the city, affording the
best of water for the use of the place, and also for
irrigating a large section of land between the city
and the mountains, before almost worthless; but now
there are large fields of grain ripening to the harvest,
together with all the varieties of vegetables, defying
in their large growth the before frowns of unreclaimed nature. Now shade trees (so necessary to
comfort here,) are growing in their strength and
beauty, and gardens and dooryards made green with
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