The Wichita daily eagle., 1893-12-06
IRRIGATION IN THE WEST.

Inc vast districts In NnfCn Ram Never
Falls for Many Months of the Year.
The easiest way to make a new farm
is to obtain from the government a
homestead grant of prairie land in a
state where enough rain falls to in
sure good crops. Then little work
need be done, except to plow the soil
and plant the seed. Nearly the whole
of the eastern half of the United States
was covered with a forest when the
first settlers occupied it, and an i'm
mense amount of work was needed to
cut down the trees and pull out or
burn the stumps before the land could
be made suitable for growing grain
and fruit If these forests were stand
ing now they would be immensely
valuable for their lumber; but the
pioneers found them enemies which
must be removed The finest trees
were sacrificed to fires and to the
building Of log houses.
After the forest lands were cleared
and cultivated, the people of the United
States discovered the value of the great
prairies of the middle west, which
have made possible the growth of Chi
cago, Minneapolis, St Paul, Duluth,
Omaha, Kansas City and ST Louis. Al
ready the best of the prairie lands are
taken. The last of them were seized
when the Cherokee strip was opened,
and little remains, except the dry soil
of the Rocky mountain region. The
United States government still con-
trolls for the benefit of the people 542,
600, 900 acres of this arid land scattered
through Arizona, California, Colorado,
Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico,
Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyom-
ing. There is enough of this land to
give 5, 420, 900 families farms of 100 acres,
and as five people are about the
average number in family, there is
still public land enough in the United
States to provide homes upon farms
for at least 27,000,oOo persons, provided
this land can be made fertile. For
tunately most of it can, but only at
the expense of labor almost as great as
that of clearing the forests from the
New England, middle and southern
states. In one case something had to
be taken away-that is, the trees. In
the other something must be added
that is, water, which is not supplied
by rains, for in some parts Of the west
rain almost never falls, and in south
ern California the sky is cloudless from
May to November.
Irrigation is not new to the Rocky
mountain region. for there are in New
Mexico and Arizona the remains of
reservoirs and irrigation bitches used
by people who disappeared before
the Indians came: but it is compare
lively new so far as white settlers are
concerned. The water of streams,
irrigation, being allowed to flow in
bitches to the fields where it is wanted.
For orchards. vineyards, most kinds of
vegetables and for alfalfa kind of
giant clover-irrigation is said to be
actually superior to rain; watering by
irrigation does not mean loss of sun
shine, nor does it involve storms which
rot or beat down crops 1t merely
supplies water to the roots of plants
and in the right quantities and at the
right time Most of the California
fruits, with which everybody in the
east is now familiar, are grown On irri-
gated land, and 3. 631, Ss1 acres of land
in the United States were irrigated
when the census of 1890 was taken.
People who believe in irrigation as a
substitute for rain assert that by its
aid ali the people in the United States
could be fed from land that is now
practically desert.-Harper's Young
People.