Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1888-11-08
THE ARID LAND AREA.
REClEIMING WASTE REGIONS BY
MEANS OF IRRIGATION.

Mr.. T. c. 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 10000 square miles of the terri
| tory in this state east of the foothills less
| than 5000 square miles are actually and
| systematically formed. 1t is my deliber
ate conviction that were all the water of
all the streams covering these plains abb
solutely preserved for domestic and irri-
eating purposes and applied with the
skill and economy displayed even in India
or Egypt, we could irrigate and make
fruitful every acre Of this immense area
an area capable of supporting an agri-
cultural population, urban and rural, of
5000, coo people, and yet it would be less
than one-half as densely populated as
Belgium or the agricultural sections of
France.
''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 S,O00,-
600 of people. Or if provided with water
for irrigation, skillfully applied, each forty
acres would support family of five per-
sons, aggregating a population of more
than 100000, not including the directly
dependent urban population. On the
same basis, the great San Luis valley
would sustain population of 1000, 900;
the San Juan country in the southwest
nearly 100000; the Gunnisor and the
Lower Grande, 750 900, and the White, the
Yampah and the almost unknown North
west, 100000 more. Before the close
of another century there will have been
elaborated 9 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 30,000, 900 acres Of agricultural lands
il this state which only need the applica-
tioa CT irrigation to be made as valuable
end productiveas as 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
dams, and great nations that are only
known in the dim past by the desolation
ulated were vast regions in the west in
an 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 lost art. These ruins are found
in arid sections where it would have been
impossible for great population and
cities to have thriyed 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 como
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 a thing of the past,
and the present must look to the future,
and If this great water question is grasped
by cur statesmen as it should be, it will
lay the foundation for still new and
mighty commonwealths.
Is the rain belt gradually moving west
ward? This is a much disputed question.
lrrigating 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
crease the rainfall.
In the January number of Science, Henry
Garnett says: Cover 100000 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 an 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 a century than anywhere else in |
the world, yet there is no evidence Of
diminished rainfall"
Professor Sargent, of Harvard college, |
says: 1.-The removal of forest from any |
region will not diminish the amount Of |
rain falling upon it; nor can the increase
of forest in 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
said to indicate an annual increase in the
rainfall of 5.21 inches; thirty years at
Fort Riley, twenty-four ct the State
Agricultural college, and seventeen years
at the State university, Lawrence, Kan,
are said to give figures showing an in
crease in the rainfall of 305 and 3.O6
inches per annnm. The data is very
and seems almost indisputable.
But there is still a 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 are raising crops. If, in
that section, they can raise the cereals
without irrigation, SO much the better,
but there are many millions of acres of
land that can never be made productive
without irrigation, and let US have reser.
voirS and great canals, and from what
are now arid regions in the west new
empires are ssibilities.-Wiu C. Ferril !