The Great Falls leader. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1888-1890, 1888-09-22
THE ARID LAND AREA.

THE ARID LAND AREA.
REcLAIMlNG WASTE REGIONS BY
MEANS OF IRRIGATION.
Agricultural Lands Of Colorado Whicl,
May BE Made Immensely Productive.
Atzec Canals and Irrigation bitches.
The Rain Belt-Farmers' Testimony.
Mr.. 7. G. Henry, formerly of Kansas,
and now one of the most prominent men
in Colorado, who has been instrumental
in building several large canals in the
state, in discussing this question, says:
'of the 40, 600 square miles of the terri
tory In this state east of the foothills less
than 5000 square miles are actually and
systematically formed. It is my deliber-
ate conviction that were all the water of
ell the streams covering these plains alb
solutely preserved for domestic and irri.
eating purposes and applies with the
skill and economy displayed even in India
or Egypt, we could irrigate and make
fruitful every acre of this immense area
1n c91nar5 area capable Of supporting an agri
P0kSAAAN0AOA41 NJ.
5000, 600 people, and yet it would be less
than one-half as densely populated as
Belgium or the agricultural sections of
France.
1.-The area east of the mountains is
practically all agricultural land, and If
peopled as densely as is Belgium, would
contain population Of more than 8,OOO,-
COO of people. Or If provided with water
for irrigation, skilfully applied, each forty
acres would support family of five per-
sons, aggregating a population of more
than ,O0O, 600, not including the directly
dependent urban population. On the
same basis, the great San Luis valley
would sustain population of 1000, 600;
the San Juan country In the southwest
nearly 1000, 600; the Gunnison and the
Lower Grande, $50, 900, and the White, the
Yampah and the almost unknown North
west, 100000 more. Before the close
of another century there will have been
elaborated system of agriculture sur
passing that wonderful civilization which
Moorish power planted in the irrigated
valleys of Spain ten centuries ago, main.
tanning the millions then populating our
grand commonwealth. There are not less
than 30, O00, 600 acres of agricultural lands
n this state which only need the applica.
zion Of irrigation to be made as valuable
md productiveas any already cultivated"
Carry these same predictions into west
ern Nebraska and Kansas, into Wyoming
and New Mexico, Idaho, Utah and
throughout the west, by utilizing the
waste waters saved in reservoirs, and the
future greatness of the west is almost in
conceivable. These things are possible.
The ruins of the Aztecs and Pueblo In
uians, and great nations that are only
known in the dim past by the desolation
OF mighty cities, tell us how densely pop
All almost unknown antiquity. With
these ruins are old canals and irrigation
bitches, and in some of them there is said
to have been used kind of cement that
is now G lost art. These ruins are found
in arid sections where it would have been
impossible for great population and
cities to have thrived without vast irri-
cation schemes. These great nations
have been swept away. How? No one
knows, but from the dim borderland of
that almost hidden antiquity there come
up facts that when first considered seem
almost like dream. But it is history,
and let history repeat itself. The public
domain will soon be thing of the past,
and the present must look to the future,
and If this great water question is grasped
by our statesmen as it should be, it will
lay the foundation for still new and
mighty commonwealth.
Is the rain belt gradually moving west
ward? This is a much disputed question.
Irrigating bitches make more surface
water, and hence there is more evapora-
tion. That proposition cannot be denied,
although it must be admitted that the
rain does not always fall in the same To-
cality where the water was taken up by
evaporation. 1t is also claimed by some
that tree planting does not materially in
In the January number Of Science, Henry
Garnett says: Cover 100, 900 square miles
of almost treeless prairie in Northern
Missouri, Southern Minnesota and parts
Of Illinois and Indiana have been reforested
since their settlement, and furnish all ex-
ample of reforesting unequaled elsewhere
upon the face of the globe, and yet the
rainfall has not increased. On the other
hand, there have been more acres of land
denuded of forest in the United States
within century than anywhere else in
the world, yet there is no evidence of a
diminished rainfall"
Professor Sargent, of Harvard college,
says: "The removal of forest from any
region will not diminish the amount of
rain falling upon it; nor can the increase
Of forest in a slightly wooded or treeless
country increase its rainfall. The gradual
drying up of countries once fertile, within
the history of the human race but now
barren and almost uninhabitable, must
be traced to gradual geological changes.
Of course entirely beyond the reach of |
human control, and not to the mere de- !
struction of the forest"
But there are able men who have thor
oughly studied the question and who state
that the rain belt is surely coming west !
ward. Among the number are Professors |
WILDER, Angbey, Snow, and Ex-Governor
Furnass, of Nebraska and Kansas. The
observations taken at Fort Leavenworth |
during period Of thirty eight years are
sal! to indicate an annual increase in the
rainfall Of 5.21 inches; thirty years ct
Fort Riley, twenty-four 1T the State
Agricultural college, :.nd seventeen wears
at the State university, Lawrence, Kan,
arc said to give figures showing an in
creasc in the rainfall Of 3.Oj and 3.06
inches per annnm. The data is very
and seems almost indisputable.
But there is still q stronger authority,
the farmers themselves. In Western
Kansas and Nebraska and Eastern Col
orado, farmers are now raising crops on
what was formerly known as the Great
American Desert. They claim that there
is a great future for that section, and
they raise crops without irrigation, de-
pending solely on the rainfall And so
while some scientists are doubling the
statement that the rain belt is coming
west. farmers ara raising crons. It. in