The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1895-04-26

Our farmers with few exceptions came
from regions where nature furnished the
necessary moisture for their crops in the
form OF rain and dew and they have
been waiting and hoping for the Same
/ blessings here, many Of them for eight.
teen years. just think what a pitiful
sight to see good men who came here in
the prime and vigor of their manhood.
tottering toward their graves in gloom
and dispair knowing that their beloved
wives and children will be homeless on
the farms where they have struggled,
tolled and hoped against fate year after
year. And why my friends is this so?
why are our farmers not prosperous on
farms of the most fertile soil in the
world, with as COOP a climate as can be
found anywhere, with as good q home
market as can be found in the United
States, and own farms gwen to them by
the best government on earth. The
reason my friends is because they are
working contrary to nature, a thing no
one can do and be successful. A bene-
VIOLENT creator has provided a generous
and abundant supply of moisture for
our Black Hills farms, which is as nee
essary to the growth OF Vegetation as the
blood that courses through your veins
is to the pourishment of your bodies,
but it does not come IN the form of
rain and dew and / for one am glad of it
because it is in a much better and re-
liable form If We only avail ourselves Of
it as nature designed we should. Our
five Thousand square miles Of timbered
hills and mountains which constitute
the Black Hills proper are shown by
the congressional report on irrigation
of 1898 to have a twenty inch rainfall
which Of course includes the SHOWS Of
winter which accumulate a vast amount
OF water that comes leaplng and surg
ing down u mountain canyons sweep
ing onward through our prairie valleys
in it mad curse toward the sea, Of
times leaving death and desolation in
It's path, it is q fact that the mountain
streams crossing this country are vast
ing about ne hundred thousand gal
Ions of water each moment, during the
cropping season each year. Now we
have a country filed with valleys de-
pressions and lake beds especially de-
signed by the greatest OF all architects,
nature, for a system ofstoroge reservoirs
to hold the surface waters OF this
country for irrigation and other pur
poses.
There 10 a grade or fall to the whole
face OF the country from the base of the
Black Hills to the banks of the Belle
Fourche and Cheyenne rivers which
would make the distribution of the
waters of this system a very easy and
practical matters. This convention has
been called for the purpose Of perfecting
an organization for the construction
and operation of the very best system
possible for the irrigation of Meade
county S. D. And it is a duty we owe
ourselves and families our creditors and
our country, that we organize here to-
day a model system of irrigation.
broad enough and practical enough to
reach every farm, and every acre OF
and in our county and protect their
owners for all time, against the paying
of tribute to any corporations or in
dlviduals for the use OF water for any
purpose whatever. Should it be found
that nature has failed to provide
enough water on the surface, we can
then avail ourselves OF that beneath the
surface, and use it to It's fullest capacity
in this the most reasonable and effective
system Of irrigation possible, where the
supply of water is limited. This now
my friends is your opportunity to avail
yourselves of the means which the God
of nature, has placed in your power to
make this a prosperous country and Of
yourselves a happy and contented peo.