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3 , -.3?.. This was a wasteful procese but the adaptability 01' the Anglo-Americans was great, and in the end the Colorado system that emerged was a very efficient one--more efficient for the intensive use of water than the one which the Spanish had developed. ,Because the Cache La Foudre Valley was the first intensively:..irrigated--~ea:.iii- the State most of the featUres of the Colorado system were developed or advoalited "oy -its irrigators. Colorado irrigation, as far as commercial farming is concerned, got ite start from the gold rush of 1859. Such men as David K. Wall and "Potato" Clark oame out to raise oropS for the mining oamps'- rather than to look for gold. At that time there was only one settlement on the Poudre~ Antoine Janie and a frm of hie Ff'ench Canadian assooiates, found- ed LaPorte in 1844. He beoame the f'irst permanent settler north of the Arkansas River. Fort Colline wae established ae a garrison in 1864, and in that year, also, Ben Eaton oame to the Valley and began farming on the present site of Windsor. The irrigation in the valley prior to 1870 wes relatively insignifioant. The first ditch was taken out of the poudre in 1860 by G. R. Sander- scn. In 186.3 he sold his squatter's rights to Joshua Yeager, and it is under the name of the Yeager Ditoh that the first priority was granted. The City Ditoh of Denver ie the oz\1y ditoh north of the Arkansas whioh antedated the Yeager Ditoh, and that' only by 2 months. All together there were thirty-four priorities granted before the establishment of the Union Colony, but the generosity of the oourt was greater than the faots warranted. Ben Eaton testified 10 years later that there was not a ' thousand acres under cultivation in the Poudre in 1870 when the construc- tion of Greeley Number Three was begun. Ths ditohes were relatively small and short, irrigating lands' on ,only the first end seoond bottoms. I The chief crop produced was hay. It was thought that the uplanda were sterile lands, that they would produce little even with water. Ben Eaton warned the Union Colony that it was senseless to take the ditchee up on the bench lands; that the land was so poor that it would fail after a crop or two. ' ~ . Ths first major event in the history of irrigation in 'Colorado was the establisllment of the Union Colony at Greeley. This assertion Olin be justified in eeveral ways. In the first place the Union Colony brought men to the state who were to make a fantaetio j,mpreseion on the institution, and on the practice of, irrigation that is way out of proportion to their numbers. N. ,C. lIIeek!lt', 'atter a trip to Colorado in 1869 invieioned a colony united in purpose and ideals, which would be finanoiallyabls to buUd, a community without going through the harSh, primitive, backward phases of other frontier settlements. To achieve the unity that was neoessary tc the success of suoh an effort, tha members 01' the colony,were selected. I quote from N. C. Meeker's circular. "The persons with whom I'would be willing to associate must be temperance men, and ambitious to establish'good society, and among as many as fifty, ten should have as much as ~10,000, twenty f>5,OOO, while others may haVe from $200 to U.OOO or up- wards . . . My awn plan would be to make the settolemel1t almost ' wholly in a village. And the lots should be sold that funds mal ! .