The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-03-03
IRRIGATION IN KANSAS.

Century for March: 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 a grist mill to grind the crop.
This was undertaken near the Arkansas
river by enterprising merchants in the
neighboring 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 character of the
great plains west of the Tooth 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 unmistak-
able emphasis. Not an acre of the crop
was harvested. The prairie schooners
set sail and steered for other parts.
Towns dwindled to mere hamlets.
All the nebulous industrial, educational,
and railroad projects suddenly descend
ed from the sublime to the ridiculous.
And yet the blighted seed was destined
to bear another and far more fatal crop,
and the forgotten mill-r or the banks
of the Arkansas to grind grist 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
prising to the practical irrigator, was q
revelation to his thoroughly disheartened
neighbors.
The soil which had produced nothing
in the previous summer responded to the
new method of cultivation with enor-
nous crops of all varieties of products.
In quality they surpassed anything pre-
viously grown in that region. As these
facts became known new hope arose,
like star in the night, against the dark
background of past discouragements.
The Garden City experiment" b.
came the Mecca of students of irrigation
throughout the wide region devastated
by the drouth. The ruined crop OF the
previous year, and the useless mill
race gave birth to an influence
which in fifteen years has assumed far
reaching proportions. This influence, by
revealing the need of irrigation in ter
ritory which had hitherto depended en-
tirely upon the rainfall, extended the
known limits of arid America hundreds
of miles to the eastward, and more than
1000 miles north and south, thus adding
to the empire of irrigation all the west
era portion of the Dakotas, Nebraska,
Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, together
with eastern Colorado
In this vast district it has begun to
revolutionizs both the industrial and
social life of the people. 1t has COM
PEELED the attention of legislatures, Gre
ated new laws and administrative sys-
TENS in several states, wrung few mea-
ger appropriations from congress, and set
on foot various industrial and educational
undertakings. The problems of the semi
arid region are peculiarly its own, diff
fering materially from those of the desert
states west of the continental divide.
The movement which has wrought these
momentous changes alike in public SEN
timent and in methods of industry, has
found its warmeet championship in Kan
sas, where it has been reduced to perfect
organization through the fundamentally
of press and platform. Throughout the
semi arid region, but particularly in Kan
sas, there are effective state. coun.y and
township associations urging the adop
ton of irrig alton as the price of prosper
ity, and extending, by means of conven-
tions and popular literature. the common
knowledge of its practical aspects.