Arizona republican., 1899-12-30
THE IRRIGATION
 PROPAGANDA

To the Editor of The Republican Sir: The cause of irrigation seems to have been unfortunate in the surpris- ing tendency of it's friends to become people of one idea as to methods. IT, rigational horticulture and agriculture are nearly as ancient as the practice of those arts under any system. The physical principles applied in the con servation and distribution of water, and the knowledge of them, are as old as civilization.
 It has always been held that water should be impounded only by dam or wier, of sufficient weight and cohesion to afford an ample factor of safety Gin the language of the engineer), and this, if of considerable height, should all ways be protected by a spillway of much greater capacity than the high est flood the stream can possibly dis gorge. With these safeguards the dam can never overflow and flood dangers can safely be ignored. Water always runs down hill and so the canal is al ways at a greater elevation than the lands to be watered from it. Tbe smaller ditches conveying the water from the main canal to the lands to be irrigated from it are known as gravity laterals''-side ditches through which the water runs by force of gravity. The physical art of irrigation is in principle so simple a child can under stand it.
 The legal and financial problems necessarily involved in the reclamation of arid lands are as free from difficulty and complication as the physical prob lems of the distribution of water cannot but think that the confusion and obscurity in which some people believe these matters to have become involved, and the consequent uncer- Jainty which they supposs to surround them, are to be traced solely to lack of knowledge on the one hand, and the false assumption, on the other, that these problems are to be solved by the application of an ethical sociology. rather than by the ordinary rules of business dealing and fair play which it is admitted should control in other business matters.
 The waters. of the streams of the arid country are by the laws of the United States freely offered to the mau Oi LlcAis SlHSty UT dS dI organization, who will eXpend their money to inn pound or divert them, with the single limitation that the waters so diverted must not be wasted, but must be used to accomplish some beneficial purpose. Upon this offer and it's acceptance here and there, and the national tacit li- cense which preceded it, rests as upon corner stone, American civilization in the western third of the United States. In some instances the respect i've states and territories have power to diminish the extent of the grant, and in some cases, perhaps, this has been done. Without this grant and the tacit governmental acquiescence which preceded it and was merged into it, mining or agriculture in the arid re- Sions to any considerable extent, would have been impossible. TO encourage and promote these two important in dustries was the express purpose Of the grant, and western civilization of to- day proves the wisdom of the policy.
 The subject of irrigation, though the art was considerably practiced pre- Viously in many localities, became q matter of national interest, perhaps