Laserfiche WebLink
<br />'. <br /> <br />system would be paid to the U.S, within three years after completion, irrigators within the <br />Water Users Association did not begin payments until the contract had been renegotiated in <br />1928 to extend the payment period to 40 years, to deduct $812,000 from the original <br />repayment cost, and to establish a reduced annual charge for the first five years. <br /> <br />m, <br /> <br />No orchards now grow in the vicinity of the town of Fruita, located toward the west <br />end of the Grand Valley, but when William E. Pabor, another alumnus of the Union Colony, <br />founded the Fruita Town and Land Company in 1883, he planted apples, pears, peaches. <br />cherries, plums, and grapes with such success that by 1886 a five-acre plot was selling for <br />$500.12 Pabor, an avid promoter of agriculture in Colorado, was moved to write: <br /> <br />Fair Fruita in the sunshine lies, <br />The fairest village 'neath the skies; <br />Broad sweep of fertile land around, <br />Where prosperous fanner homes abound; <br />Home of the almond, apple, peach, <br />And vines, whose purple clusters teach <br />That bounteous Nature offers here <br />A generous summer with each year. 13 <br /> <br />Despite Pabor's optimism, there is something incongruous about growing peaches in <br />Colorado. And yet they do grow - in most years, very well. They grow best in the eastern <br />part of the valley, the area around the town of Palisade, on the higher lands that enjoy the <br />benefits of the fact that wann air rises, The growing season on these higher areas averages <br />187 days a year, compared to the 140 day growing season in the lower part of the valley west <br /> <br />" Steven F. Meh!s, The Valley of Opportunity: A History of West-<:entral Colorado (Bureau of Land <br />Management, 1988) at 145. <br /> <br />13 WiUiam E. Pabor, Wedding Bells: A Colorado Idyl 118 (1900). <br /> <br />7 <br />