Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1893-12-07
THE SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS

, slide on before the events, and in
today already walks tomorrow.
The full significance of the move
ment inaugurated at the Salina con-
vention, and in the furtherance of
which tile Wichita convention was
held last week, can be appreciated
I only by those having some practical
knowledge of the subject of irrigation
and who have witnessed its results.
The truth of this assertion was well
illustrated by a short editorial par
agraph that appeared on the eve of the
meeting al Wichita, in one Of the
papers published in that city, which
was in substance that if the farmers
in western Kansas who are perpet-
uallY starving by reason of failure of
crops, or freezing because of their in
ability to purchase fuel, would leave
the barren and God forsaken hills of
that region and settle il white mans
country, they would be less likely TO
| be regarded as fools by the general
public.
The same thing might with equal
| justice have been said a few years ago
of the pioneers who left the praries of
Kansas and Nebraska behind them,
and in the face Of Incredible dangers
and hardships occupied the plains and
valleys of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah
and Idaho, where the conditions for
successful farming were very much
less favorable than they are today in
the western belt Of Kansas, yet where
is the section in eastern Kansas OF
Nebraska SO formed for fertility, abun-
dant crops and absence of all posi-
bility OF crop failures as that in which
Greeley, Colo, is located, OF the valley
of Great Salt Lake i'll Utah, the Big
Horn and upper Platte valleys in
Wyoming, and the magnificent fruit
growing country about Boise, Idaho?
And these are simply examples OF what
irrigation has accomplished in rain
less region, where the farmer has also
to contend with alkali lands and sage
brush, with short growing seasons and
inadequate transportation facilities,
OF none al all, and with dozen other
obstacles the Kansas farmer never
dreamed Of, much less encountered.
While the rain belt has moved west
ward very perceptiby since the settle
ment of trans Missouri empire, it is
nevertheless true that irrigation has
been the prime factor in effacing from
the modern map all traces of the Great
American Desert, whose outposts re-
ceded gradually to the foot hills Of the
Rockies, were then driven back into
the mountain Businesses. and, finally,
We're lost forever amid the eternal
SHOWS of the Continental Divide. The
elevated plateaus of Montana and
Wyoming, on which vast herds Of
cattle ranged, and a whole section of
which would not raise enough grass
to keep steer alive have, through
irrigation, been made the richest hay
meadows on the continent, where the
ranchman or small farmer is rapidly
displacing the clttle baron and the
cowboy.
y concerted movement to secure to
the citizens of the prairie states their
share of the waters that come from the
melting SHOWS IN the mountains for
purposes of irrigation was inaugur-
ated some years ago by Governor
Thayer, of Nebraska, but failed to
secure the encouragement and CO ope-
ration that would have made it a
success. Thayer succeeded, however
in alarming the mountaineers and the
result was the proposition for a system
of reservoirs in the mountains, to be
built and regulated by the national
y government, which will eventually
no doubt, be accomplished. Then the
. Arkansas, the Platte and other
, streams having their source high W
in the hills will resume their former
volume and millions Of acres of land
will be brought under irrigation and
reclaimed by the agriculturist. Arte.
sian wells and reservoirs will have tt
: be resorted to in sections not traverse6
Il by any stream, and this has beer
: done successfully too often to be lorg
er considered in the light of an ex
/ pertinent.
!. The irrigation and successful cult
walton of all Of those lands in western
IT Kansas where crop failures have beer
z SO common of late years is only &
question of time, and once they are
b relieved from dependence upon tn,
j rainfall, that moment crop failures
will cease to enter into the calcula.
v tions Of the farmers of that section
1t who will know neither flood nor
/ drought, but will reap as be has sowed
with the unvarying regularity of ths
!. changing moons and revolving seasons
1t is within the bounds of possibilit,
b that in those days a succession o
crop failures may oyertake the farmer
r of middle and eastern Kansas from
y too much or too little rainfall and from
81 the ravages OF pestiferous insects, an,
that they will be obliged to appea