Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona | Page 9

This checks the development of all her resources--not only to her own injury, but that of California and the Atlantic States--by withholding a market for their productions, and the bullion which she is fully able to supply to an extent corresponding to the labor employed in obtaining it.
A. B. Gray, Esq., late U. S. Surveyor under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, for running the Mexican Boundary, and subsequently Exploring Engineer and Surveyor of the Southern Pacific Railroad, has probably seen more of the proposed Territory of Arizona than any other person, his statements in reference to that region, embodied in a report to the Hon., the Secretary of the Interior, from actual field reconnoissances six years ago, will be read with much interest, particularly as since then, repeated developments in that country have proved the correctness of his judgment; his opinions are, therefore, of much importance, as expressed in his able report. It will be recollected that this was then Mexican Territory. Colonel Gray says:
"The public, I think have been misled by misrepresentations made in regard to the resources of the region of country lying along the Gila and upon the line proposed for a railroad at or near the parallel of 32 degrees north latitude. That portion of country east of the Rio Grande I can say but little of from personal observation, having been over but apart of the ground near the eastern division in Texas, and that in the vicinity of El Paso. At both these points, however, a fine country exists. Upon the Gila river grows cotton of the most superior kind. Its nature is not unlike that of the celebrated Sea Island cotton, possessing an equally fine texture, and, if anything, more of a silky fibre. The samples I procured at the Indian villages, from the rudely cultivated fields of the Pimas and Maricopas, have been spoken of as an extraordinary quality. Wheat, corn, and tobacco, together with beans, melons, etc., grow likewise upon the banks and in the valleys bordering the Gila and its tributaries. The sugar cane, too, I believe, will be found to thrive in this section of the country west of the Rio San Pedro. A sort of candied preserve and molasses, expressed from the fruit of the cereus giganteus and agave Americana was found by our party in 1851, as we passed through the Pinal Llano camps and among the Gila tribes, to be most acceptable. The candied preserve was a most excellent substitute for sugar. It is true that there are extensive wastes to be encountered west of the Rio Grande, yet they are not deserts of sand, but plains covered at certain seasons of the year with luxuriant grass, exhibiting green spots and springs not very remote from each other at all times. There is sufficient water in the Gila and its branches for all the purposes of irrigation when it is wanted, the streams being high during the season most needed. The Rio Salado, a tributary of the Gila, is a bold and far more beautiful river than the Gila itself, and, from the old ruins now seen there, must have had formerly a large settlement upon its banks. "To many persons merely travelling oremigrating across the country, with but one object in view, and that the reaching their destination on the Pacific, the country would generally present a barren aspect. But it will be recollected that the most productive fields in California, before American enterprise introduced the plough, and a different mode of cultivation from that of the natives of the country, presented somewhat similar appearance. Many believed, at first, from the cold and sterile look of the hills, and the parched appearance of the fields and valleys, over which the starving coyote is often seen prowling in search of something to subsist on, that California could never become an agricultural district, but must depend upon her other resources for greatness, and trust to distant regions for the necessaries of life required for her increased population. It was natural enough, too, that this impression should be created in those accustomed to a different State of things, and particularly when it is considered that the very season of blossom and bloom of our Atlantic States was the winter of California; but these same fields and hills have a very different appearance in January, February, and March, clothed as they are in the brightest verdure and no one now will pretend to say that California does not possess within herself great agricultural as well as mineral wealth. This, I believe, will some day be the case with the country from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California, adjacent to the Gila. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 55, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session."
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