Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-10-17

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between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts
q huuGred miles Of land not reclaimed
either by farmers pillow or miners crow
bar. BY irrigation the waters of the
rivers and the showers of heaven, in
what are called the rainy season, will
be gathered into great reservoirs and
through aCueducts let down where and
when the people want them. Utah is an
object lesson. Some parts of that terri
tory which were so barren that spear
of grass could not have been raised there
! in hundred years are now rich as
Lancaster county farms of Pennsylva
MIA, or Westchester farms Of New York,
or Somerset county farms of New .jer-
sey Experiments have proved that ten
acres Of ground irrigated from waters
gathered in great Neurological basins
will produce as much as so acres from
the downpOur of rain as seen IN our re-
gions We have our freshets and our
droughts, but in those lands which are
to be scientifically irrigated there will be
neither freshets nor droughts. AS you
take pitcher and get it full of water
and then set it on table and take a
drink out Of it when you are thirsty and
never think of drinking a pitcherful all
at once, SO Montana and Wyoming and
Idaho will catch the rains of their rainy
season and take up all the waters of
their rivers in great pitchers Of reser-
voirs and refresh their land whenever
they will.
Gods Earthly Throne.
The work has already been grandly
begun by the United States government.
Over 400 lakes have already been Off
cialIy taken possession of by the nation
for the great enterprise of irrigation.
Rivers that have been rolling idly
through these regions doing nothing
on their way to the sea, will be lassoed
and corralled and penned up until such
time as the farmers need them. Under
the same processes the Ohio, the Missis-
sippi, and all the other rivers will be
taught to behave themselves better, and
great basins will be made to catch the
surplus Of waters in times of freshet and
keep them for times of drought. The
irrigating process by which all the arid
lands between the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans are to be fertilized is no new ex-
pertinent.
1t has been going on successfully
hundreds Of years in Spain, in China,
in India, i'll Russia, in Egypt. About
500, 900, 900 Of people of the earth today
are kept alive by food raised on irrigat-
ed land. And here we have allowed to
lie waste, given up to rattlesnake and
bat and prairie dog, lands enough to
support whole nations of Industrious
population. The work begun will be
consummated. Here and there excep-
tiOnal lands may be stubborn and refuse
to yield any wheat or corn from their
hard fists, but if the hoe fail to make
an impression the miners pickaX will
discover the reason for it and bring up
from beneath those unproductive sur
faces coal and iron and lead and copper
and silver and gold. God speed the
biologists a=sd the surveyors, the en-
gineerS and the senatorial commissions,
and the capitalists and the new settlers
and the husbandmen, who put their
brain and hand and heart to this trans
fguration of the American CONTINENT
"Streams in the desert %
But while speak of the immensely
Of the continent, 1 must remark it is
not an immensely of monotone or tame
ness. The larger some countries are, the
WOIS0 luz LIS WOIlu. ILLS CUutlu6uG Is
not more remarkable for it's magnitude
than for its wonders of construction.
Yosemite and the adjoining California
regions! Who that has seen them can
think of them without having his blood
Jingle? Trees now standing there that
were old when Christ lived! These
monarchs of foliage reigned before Caesar
or Alexander, and the next thousand
years will not shatter their scepter!
They are the masts of the continent
their canvas spread on the winds, while
the old ship bears on it's way through
the ages!
Our Nations Playground.
That valley of the Yosemite is eight
miles long and a half mile wide and
5000 feet deep. 1t seems as if it had
been the meaning Of omnipotence to
crowd into as small place as possible
some of the most stupendous scenery of
the world Some of the cliffs you 90
not stop to measure by feet, for they
are literally mile high. Steep so that
neither foot of man or beast ever scaled
them, they stand in everlasting def
ance. If Jehovah has a throne on earth,
these are its white pillars. Standing
down in this great chasm of the valley,
you look up, and yonder is Cathedral
rock, vast, gloomy minister built for the
silent worship of the mountainsl Yon-
der is Sentinel rock 3,27O feet high,
bold, solitary, standing guard among
the ages, its top seldom touched, until
a bride, one Fourth of July, mounted it
and planted the national standard, and
the people down in the valley looked up
and saw the head of the mountain tur-
baned with stars and stripes. Yonder |
are the Three Brothers, 4, 900 feet high;
Clouds Rest, North ard South Dome
he hoic rod