Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-10-29
INFLUENCE OF IRRIGATION.

The Worlds Progress has an article under
this heading, which says the first honor for
changing the Great American Desert. SO
called by the old geographers, into fertile
lands, must be bestowed on the hardy early
settlers of Utah. But the great scale on
which this plan is carried out was begun
in Greeley, Col, about twenty years ago.
BY an expensive system of ditching, water
was brought for long distance, and has
changed the barren plain to fruitful acres
About the same time the Riverside project,
in Southern California, was begun on q
larger scale, and soon after that in Fresno,
in Central California, great plans were IN
dertalien The large yield of vegetables in
Greeley, of oranges in Riverside, and the
magnificent success of the raisin industry in
Fresno, have been the direct results of
these stupendous undertakings to supply
artificial irrigation.
To sum up from the recent reports of the
irrigation inquiry under the United States
agricultural department there are in the
Rocky Mountain states alone over thirteen
millions of acres subject to this irrigation,
There has been to get these acres under IT.
rigation, some special engineering of mar
velous sort, particularly in California,
where immense reservoirs have been made
for the storage of the water supply, with
gigantic systems of bitches OF canals opened
up to lead this water scores of miles in
every direction. These works have been
of our leading monthly magazines, and as
result the whole country is now aroused
with reference to the subject of artificial
water supply to crops. In almost every
state of the Union the thing is being dis
cussed, and in many of them where irriga-
ton was heretofore looked upon as wholly
unnecessary important tests have been
made and crowned with such success as to
render it almost a settled fact that we are
just entering upon an era that shall find ir
rigation general throughout the whole
country, in every section whose natural adj
vantages will admit of its being carried Oh.
The gain is now so evident that the state
with irrigation capabilities that does not
promptly take advantage of them will be
speedily left behind so far as relates to
modern agricultural progress.
Already this stupendouS and sudden
change in the methods of agriculture is
completely revolutionizing the conditions of
life and society on the great plains and
mountain slopes. Cattle ranching with its
wildness and waste has given place to grain
raising, to the pecuniary and moral advan-
tage of the population at and near these To-
cations. The large holdings Of the ranch
men are now sub-divided into small farms Of
from thirty to a hundred acres, and in Cali
fornia the newly irrigated lands are I'M
equaled for the growth of semi-tropical
fruit, such as olives, bananas, oranges,
grapes, figs, prunes and nuts. This rapid
change in agriculture is already producing
an enormous gain in population.
The Great American Desert still covers
not less than $4,000 square miles, most Of
which, it is believed, are reclaimable The
soil of its most barren valleys is found to
be rich in all the needed mineral elements
of plant food. Without an abundant water
supply those elements remained dormant,
and were Of no more value to agriculture
than were beds Of clear sand-with water
they have sprung into degree of product
iveness that surprises the whole world.
While much has already been done to
supply artificial irrigation, vastly more re-
mains to be done, and will be done sooner
or later. All the great states, and especially
the great states west of the Mississippi