Page 63 of 79
57
HUTSON.]
PROJECTS AT EAGLE PASS.
There are about 3,000 acres of irrigable land unutilized on the east side of San Felipe Creek. The land has mainly what is called an "adobe " soil. It is fertile when watered and seems peculiarly adapted to the grape and the pear. All kinds of fruits and vegetables are grown in profusion. On June 15 melons, plums, and apples were ripe. The impression made on the traveler who comes from the droughty and sun-scorched plains to such a spot is not soon forgotten. This culti vated tract has been so isolated from the rest of the agricultural world that none of the diseases which so reduce the profits of the grape or fruit grower elsewhere have been introduced as yet. Grapes produce from 6,000 to 10,000 pounds to the acre, and are mostly made into wine, the above yields giving from 10 to 16 barrels of wine.
East of Del Rio an attempt made to use the waters of Pinto Creek has been unsuccessful because the supply failed just at the season when it was needed. Dams for the purpose of storing the flow of the creek for use in the summer are necessary before anything further can be done. On Mud Creek, C. Vivian, by means of a solid masonry dam 100 feet long, irrigates several hundred acres of land.
At Eagle Pass, about 60 miles below Del Rio, there is a promising enterprise for irrigating a considerable area from the Rio Grande. This river, though dry each year near El Paso, has here a minimum flow of not less than 3,000 second-feet, due mainly to its tributaries, the Pecos and Devil rivers, in Texas, and the Concho, in Mexico. The company building the canal is called the Eagle Pass Irrigation and Waterworks Company. It is proposed to take out a canal with a capacity of 200 second-feet at a point on the river 35 miles above Eagle Pass, where a ledge of rock furnishes a natural dam site and opportunity for locating regulating works. From there the canal is brought down for 12 miles along the base of the hills, which here skirt close to the river channel. Two and one-half miles from its beginning it will empty into Pinto Creek, which will be dammed and will form a settling basin for the coarser silt and sand.
The dam across Pinto Creek will contain scouring sluices for the purpose of keeping the channel free from sediment and of letting the flow of the creek pass in time of flood. At the end of 12 miles the canal comes out on the valley to be irrigated. An old lake bed is surrounded by a semicircular line of ridges which abut on the river at the northern and southern ends. A similar line of hills bounds the Mexican side of the valley. Through this valley the river has cut its channel some 40 feet below the surface, leaving two-thirds on the Texas and one-third on the Mexican side. The canal is designed to skirt along this boundary line of ridges to the end of the valley, where it empties into the river after irrigating 20,000 acres. There is a plan to enlarge it at some time in the future and carry it to Eagle Pass to irrigate some 100,000 acres. The total length of the main canal, as it is to be built now, is 28 miles, with an average
