Lewiston teller. [volume] (Lewiston, North Idaho) 1878-1900, 1896-05-14
Irrigation.

by enterprising merchants in the neigh
boring community of Garden City; but
the new institution began and ended
with a mill race. Before the building
and machinery were required. the
wheat crop had surrendered to dry air
and hot winds. The semi-arid char
acter of the great plains west OF the
hundredth meridian, long known TO
stockmen and Indians, but denied by
greedy land agents and discredited by
eager and hopeful settlers, had again
asserted itself with unmistakable en-
phasis. Not an acre Of the crop was
harvested. The prairie-schooners SET
sail and steered for other parts. Towns
dwindlcd to mere hamlets. All the
ncbulous industrial, educational, and
railroad projects suddenly descended
from the sublime to the ridiculous. And
yet the hlighted seed was destined to
bear another and far more fateful crop,
and the forgotten mill-race ON the
banks of the Arkansas to grind grlst
that would prove historic.
A few settlers remained to rake amid
the ashes of their ruined hopes. Among
them was a man who had learned the
methods Of irrigation while living in
| California and Colorado. 1t happened
that his land adjoined the abandoned
mill-race, and he readily obtained the
right to turn the water upon part of
his farm. The result, though not sur
prisng to the practised irrigator, was
a revelation to his thoroughly dis
heartened neighbors.
The soil which had produced nothing
in the previous summer responded to
| the new method of cultivation with
enormous crops of all varieties of prod
ucts. In quality they surpassed any
thing previously grown in that region
As these facts became known a new
against the dark background Of past
discouragements. The Garden City
experiment" became the Mecca of stu
dents Of irrigation throughout the
wide regions devastated by the drought
The ruined crop Of the previous year
and the useless mill-race. gave birth tC
an influence which in fifteen years has
assumed far-reaching proportions. This
influence, by revealing the need of ir
rigation in a territory which had hith
erto depended entirely upon the rain
fall, extended the known limits of arit
America hundreds of miles to the east
ward and more than one thousand mile:
north and south, thus adding to the
empire Of irrigation all the wester,
- nj v-I>, ,lx~
Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, together
with eastern Colorado.
In this vast district it has begun tt
revolutionize both the industrial ant
social life of the people. 1t has com
PEELED the attention of legislatures
systems in several states, wrung a few
meagre appropriations from congress
and set on foot various industrial an,
educational undertakings. The prob
lens Of the semi-arid region are pecu
liarly it's own, differing materially from
those of the desert states west of tn
, continental divide. The movemen
which has wrought these momentou
, changes alike in public sentiment an
in methods of industry has found it
, warmest championship in Kansas
, where it has been reduced to perfec
| organization through the instrumental
ity of press and platform. Throughout
, the semi-arid region, but particular
in Kansas, there are effective state
; county, and township associations urs
, | ing the adoption of irrigation as tn
price of prosperity, and extending, b
= means of conventions and popular Ii,
- erature, the common knowledge of il
9 practical aspects.--"Ways and Mean
4 in Arid America" by William |
Smyth, in the Century.