The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1889-10-25
Irrigation Extremely Ancicnt-Great Va
riety of observation-disclosures Compares Egypt
and the Holy Land-American Expert

y =
has not been practiced in one or more coun-
tries. from the use Of the rudcSt vessel TO
simply dip up the water, up through all the
grades Of common hand labor TO the Egyp-
tian "Shadouf," or from the simple bamboo
wheel Of the East Indian to the elaborate
system of dams, fumes, canals and acecqulas
which once made Babylonia as the very
garden of the Lord for abundance, and have
lately been parallcled by the British in India
and tie Americans in Utah and Colorado
Equally difficult would il be to find any new
feature as 10 water supply and its value, for
in the United States alone Is found every
grade from the rocky little tr0ughS of the
MoquiS of Arizona. by whom the tiniest rill
is huShanded rs il water were golden, to the
mammoth lume of Boulder, Colo, where
river is anchored 10 n mountain side and
made 10 feed hundreds of artificial lakes.
!l-h ponds and fountains
still further, il may be said that since the
beginning of history little or nothing has
been added to mans knowledge Of the prin-
ciple The rudest savage could 80 iaiI to
observe that his favorite plants withered in
time of drought, and that the tree by the
river remained green while that on the plain
uied, and thence to infer that water was the
needed thing In the oldest poetry the early
and the latter rain are referred 10 as bless
ingS, the dweIers in arid lands are pointed to
regions of regular rain as TO types OF heaven;
the very word paradise means place
where trees grow, and Moses oNhortinG the
children of Israel to hasten to the promised
land, assures them that there they will not
have 10 raise water with the foot ION the
tread wheel as in Egypt, for the Lord waters
that land. The land where the brook fall
eth not" is always the land of promise.
In the United States the area Of arid and
sub-arid. lands includes at least 100000
square miles "Sub-arid" is the term applied
by Maj. Powell TO a strip perhaps two hun
dred miles wide along the eastern border OF
the arid rCgion-a strip including much of Da-
kota, Nebraska, Kansas and the Indian terri
tory, and a very large proportion OF TcXas-a
strip in which rain enough for good farming
cannot be relied upon more than one year in
three. Public interest In irrigation, however,
has been Of very slow growth, and it was
only after twenty years local agitation of the
matter that congress appropriated money for
a thorough inquiry In America as in Asia
there is no record of the beginning of irriga-
ton. and the traveller through the far south
west sees many painful reminders of the
struggles the semi-civilized Indians aztec or
valleys he will see that, when compelled to
abandon their lowest and broadest fields, they
re,reated further up the valley, built more
elaborate dams, and even ''puddled" the bot
toms Of their reservoirs TO prevent seepage
Still the increasing drought prevailed over
them, and they died out or abandoned the
country.
In Mexico the conquering Spaniards neces-
sariIy adopted the methods Of the Indian
farmers and continued them in their settle
ments in New Mexico and southern Califor-
MT .,everr---t - Amer .c7rTrs
nothing of irrigation until the Mormons To-
Gated in Great Salt Lake valley. Their
method was and still remains extremely sim
Pile After many experiments they made an
estimate of water "dutyn-the amount that
would run through a foot square orifice in
given time at a given pressure-and roughly
estimated the cost of securing it. The church
engineer surveyed n valley and reported the
number of families it was sufficient for, the
church selected them, named all their officials
and sent them to settle the valley.
Where the stream issued from the mount
ain a simple dam was made, and from it the
main canal was carried along the base of the
hills inclOsing the valley; from it small canals
or acecquias crossed back to the original creek
bed every quarter of mile or So and from
these smaller bitches traversed the upper side
Of each little farm. From them in turn tiny
rills flowed down between the rows of corn
or potatoes, among the orchard trees or in
shallow burrows through the wheat and
grass The Mormons never attempted TO re-
deem the vast terraces Of the larger valleys;
they cOntented themselves with the simplest
system, and TO this day there are no great
trumphs in Utah to compare
with those in Colorado. and few, if any, arti-
fetal lakes, fish ponds or fountains.