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' Much to the chagrin of the farmers, their boom ended by 1900. Not only did the rains fail to come, but irrigation ditches, ' including those in the Dowe Flats area, ran dry and a national depression that proved to be particularly devastating to Colorado's ' silver mines all but wiped out the farm markets. Those who could afford to abandoned their farms, did so, while others hung on by ' scratching out a living from the parched soil(Mehls 1984a:123-134). The Panic of 1893 and ensuing depression marked the end of Colorado's first boom period and local residents spent the closing ' years of the nineteenth century trying to adjust to the changed conditions and looking for the next boom. 3.2.4 Ranching and Farming After 1900 ' The drought of the 1890s marked a turning point in agricultural development for all of the Colorado plains including ' the areas around Boulder and Longmont. For farmers with irrigation systems, the need to build or improve reservoirs became obvious as ' the ditches ran dry. Those farmers who did not have sources of water other than precipitation found they had to make adjustments ' in their methods. Soil studies, rainfall studies, improved windmill pumps to bring up groundwater, and new hybrids of plants all became available to farmers after 1900 and this allowed for more productive farming. These developments, followed by abnormally high crop prices during World War I (1919-1919), led to a boom in dryland farming. During this boom period another factor influenced Boulder County agriculture, the introduction of sugar ' beets. Sugar beets had been cultivated in central Europe since the ' Napoleonic Wars. The crop spread slowly to the United States and in the ten years after the Civil War some experimentation began. ' In 1871 a committee of Colorado businessmen unsuccessfully tried to ' 37