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Show THE ARKANSAS VALLEY. A correspondent of the New York Times, with the Hayden survey, writing writ-ing from the Arkansas valley, Colorado, Colo-rado, gives the following description of the country: Thevallev of the Arkansas Ar-kansas is simply a desert of sand, probably formed in the same way as the South Park. But it is worse than that, for there the Platte fertilizes a broad margin of ground on either side of the country it Hows through. The Arkansas rolls down a turbid and furious current many feet below the level of the plain, and fertilizes it no more than if it ran between Btone walla. Everybody knows what the hnnin nf t.hfi (Went Suit T.obn .- K fore Mormon industry had transformed trans-formed it from a barren waste to a blooming garden. Everybody knows what the Desert of Sahara is now. ' The Valley of the Arkansas appears like a slice of this desert, but the indefatigable in-defatigable industry of the race which is gradually occupying it, may do for it what the Mormons did for their country. Every green thing which may be grown on this soil must have water brought to it by miles of irrigating irri-gating ditches. What its latent fertility fer-tility may bo we cannot yet tell. Kanches there are and settlements here, but many years must certainly elapse before wo can know whether tho crons which mav be rdianH will in the long run, pay the cost of raising rais-ing them. It is said that farms hero could not be bought for less than $10, an aero. It may be so, but this must mean improved farms. The land in its natural Btato is simply grayish yellow saud, with piuinu pine on the ridges, and nothing whatever on the levels. At long distances apart, a creok running through a broad do-prcBsion do-prcBsion in the plain makes a green oasis in tho desert; and it was in one of these, near a houaostanding in the shade of a group of cottonwoud trees, that wo enmnod. |