The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-07-15
IRRIGATION PROBLEM.
HOW THE GREAT PLAINS OF THE
WEST CAN BE WATERED.
The Important Question Discussed
By & Leading Acknowledgements
of Public Interest in Irrigation
The Waters That May Be Utilized.


The Waters That May Be Utilized
Irrigation is an incident of farming
Why should an incident of an occupa-
ton be so prominent in the public view
as irrigation certainly is at present:
This incident, too, is a local one. I'm
like blowing. which belongs to farming
everywhere, this is limited to certain
climatic regions. Why should such an
incident SO limited be discussed so ex-
tensively as it is now in the newspapers
and magazines? This may be some
what briefly answered by saying, o.
that in the limited regions referred to
it is the most important incident OF
farming; it is the sine qua non of ag-
iriculture, the one condition of contin-
uous successful cultivation of the soil
(2) that in the development of the re-
sources of our country, and the increase
of our population, we have to face the
problem of settling that part of the
! United States in which the china tic
conditions demand that irrigation shall
be used in agriculture; and 90, that the
regions where this is true, wholly or in
part, constitute not less than two-fifths
of the area of our countryI
How the subject has grown in public
estimation may be shown by the state
ment of few facts. In April, 1878,
Major j. w. Powell, then in charge of
the United States geological survey of
the Rocky Mountain region, made a
report to the commissioner of the gen
eral land Office ION the lands of the
arid regions" A second edition of s.
600 copies was issued from the govern
ment printing office in 1879. 1t submits
drafts of bills recognizing lands as ir-
rigable, pastoral and forest, and propos-
ing to allow settlers to take up land
with water rights attached in the pro-
portion of twenty acres of irrigable land
, to four square miles of non-irrigable
! pasture land. But Congress took no
definite action till October, 1885, Then
an act was passed which appropriated
! $780, 900" for the purpose of inyestigat-
ing the extent to which the arid region
of the United States can be redeemed
/ by irrigation, and the segregation of the
irrigable land in such arid region, etc .
This investigation, or survey, was given
! into the charge of the United States
/ geological survey, of which Major
/ Powell has been the director since 1880.
The appropriations were afterwards in
! creased, and the work grew. The first
report on the subject, being part of
/ the tenth annual report of the United
)
quarto. The second, being part of
J the eleventh annual, has 395 pages,
A CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGA-
! TON
J In 1889 Senate committee made an
investigation, travelling through the re-
gions interested, and examined many
witnesses. Besides the senators who
conducted the inquiry two persons were
prominent in this investiga tiOn-Major
Powell and r. j. Hinton. One result of
the committees work was the curtail-
ing the operations Of the geological sur
vey. Another was the ordering of a
special investigation for a limited time
of the semi-arid region by the depart
ment of agriculture, then in charge of
Secretary Rusk This work was finished
(as per limitation of the acD December
81 1891, and there has since been issued
a final report in four parts. Of which a
second edition in one volume of 800
pages of 10000 copies has recently been
published. Besides official publications,
there is also G large periodical literature
devoted to irrigation. Three years ago
q large maya zine was established with
the title of the Irritation Age" 1t is
now published at Chicago, and ranks
with the leading special journals of the
time Last year the Irrigation Mar
keI began IN New 1OEh- III y,
1894, the Irrigation Farmer" began at
Salina, Kan. and in March was issued
! the first number of Irrigation at
F, Omaha The Western Homestead"
published in western Kansas, as a sam
pie of a. western country paper,o of which
there are others in California and Ne
brasl1a, mainly devoted to teaching ir-
rigation and chronicling the results.
The literature of irrigation is shown by
these examples to be both voluminous
and widely spread.
! 1t is Said the Anglo-SaXon race is
now for the first time fronting the
lproblem of utilizing large areas of land
by irrigation. And being the American
branch of the race, it must needs have
meetings and organize. In November,
{ 1890 a convention of DELEGATES from
Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas met at
Oberlin, near the t0fst meridian, in
northwest Kansas, to discuss the pos
sibilities of irrigation IN the semi-arid
regions. A few months later a larger
convention for the same purpose was
held during the meeting of the Ne
braslza legislature at Lincoln, the cap
ital of that state. This form of ex-
J preston of public interest was con-
tinued in county meetings in the states
interested; but falling into allegiance
for some time it was revived in the
summer Oh 1880 Dy IL IleellHS d. NTiedI
Bend Kan, where a state irrigation
society was organized. In September
an interstate congress was held at
Salina, Kan a second state conven-
ton was held at Wichita in December,
followed by a state organization, eff
fected at North Platte, Neb., in Jan
uary 1894 In March a large interstate
congress met at Omaha and a state
convention in South Dakota in June.
A national association held a congress
at Los Angeles in November last, and
county and district meetings are num-
erous. The increasing attendance at
these assemblies shows the increasing
public interest. The Omaha meeting
had between 200 and 800 delegates from
seven or eight states.
PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED.
The questions discussed in the irriga-
tion literature and at the conventions
are of several distinct kinds:
l What aid, by surveys, experimental
stations, or otherwise ought the gov
eminent state or nationaD to give to
the irrigation movement?
g. What methods Of irrigation are
available in the different parts of the
region Interested?
8. What are the sources of the water
supply and what proportion of the land
viii the supply irrigate?
The arid region, which may be con-
sidered roughly as included in the
states and territories west of the 105th
meridian, has made considerable prog
ress both in the theory and practice of
! irrigation. BY it the Mormons. through
forty years of trial and error, have
made garden of much of their Desert,
and by that experience and similar tri-
ais Of their own, systems Of municipal
law governing the subject have been
evolved in all the states; or the Span
ish customs Of the more southern teszi-
tories have been raised to the position
of common law. 1t is said the laws of