The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-03-27
IRRIGATION OCT WEST.
Hard Times OF Farmers in the
Arid Regions.
Many Moved Away, and Towns Dwindleo
to Hamlets, But 8 California Man
Demonstrated What Could BE
Done by Irrigation.

| In Finney county, near the western
border of Kansas, thousands of acres
were planted to wheat, and it seemed
the sanest of projects to build grist-
mill 10 grind the crop. This was under
taken near the Arkansas river by en-
| terprising merchants in the neighbor-
ing community of Garden City; but the
lew institution began and ended with
q millrace. Before the building and
machinery were required, the wheat
crop had surrendered to dry air and
hot winds. The semi-arid character Of
The great plains west of the Tooth
meridian, long known 10 stockmen and
Indians, but denied by greedy land
agents and discredited by eager and
hopeful settlers, had again asserted it
self with unmistakable emphasis. Not
an acre Of the crop was harvested. The
prairie-schooners set sail and steered
for other parts. Towns Gwindled TO
yaere hamlets. All the nebulous in
tlustrial, educational and railroad prof.
ects suddenly descended from the sub
lime to the ridiculous. And yet the
blighted seed was destined to bear an
other and far more fateful crop, and the
forgotten millrace on the banks of the
Arkansas TO grind a 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
that his land adjoined the abandoned
millrace, and he readily obtained the
right to turn the water upon a part
of his farm. The result, though not
surprising to the practiced irrigator,
was a revelation TO his thoroughly dis
heartened neighbors.
The soil which had produced nothing
iu 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
hope arose, like a star in the night,
against the dark background of past
discouragements. The Garden City
"eXperiment' became the Mecca of stu
dents of irrigation throughout the
wide region devastated by the drought,
The ruined crop Of the previous year,
and the useless millrace, gave birth tc |
an influence which in Is years has as
sumed far-reaching proportions. This
influence, by revealing the need of ir- |
Tigation in a territory which had hith- |
erto depended entirely upon the rain
fall, extended the known limits of arid |
America hundreds of miles to the east |
ward and more than 1000 miles north |
ard south, thus adding to the empire
of irrigation all The western portions
of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Okla
'homa and texas, together with eastern
Colorado.
In this vast district it has begun to |
revolutionize both the industrial and
social life of the people. 1t has COM
PEELED the attention of legislatures,
created new laws and administrative
systems in several states, wrung a few
meager appropriations from congress,
and set on foot various industrial and
educational undertakings. The prob
lens of the semi-arid region are pc
culiarly its own, differing materially
from those of the desert states west of
the continental divide. The movement
which has wrought these momentous
changes alike in public sentiment and
in methods of industry has found it's
warmest championship in Kansas,
where it has been reduced to perfect
through the instrumental
ity of press and platform. Throughout
the semi-a1id region, but particularly
in Kansas. there are effective state,
county and township associations urg-
ing the adoption of irrigation as the
price of prosperity, ana extending, by
means of conventions and popular lit
erature, the common knowledge of its
practical aspects.-William E. Smythe,
in Century.