Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-05-08
THE ARID WEST
State Engineer Elwood Mead Tells
Of the Possibilities of
Irrigation,
THE EAST Is AWAKENED
The Importance of the Reclamation of the
West Is Now Attracting Due
Attention.

An address upon The Possibilities of
Irrigation has been made by Elwood
Mead, state engineer of Wyoming,
which is in part as follows:
THE possibilities of irrigation en-
brace many things which time will not
permit me to consider. What they have
of achievement, of wealth and of popu-
lation for this region nothing but the
vision of a prophet would enable me to
forecast. The wonderful transforma-
ton already wrought in the appearance,
resources and popular estimation of the
value of the arid west makes it difficult
in many respects for future possibili-
ties to surpass past achievements.
IRRIGATION AND CIVILIZATION.
Draper says that civilization de-
ponds on climate and agriculture Aft
er my recent visit to Arizona / was
ready to endorse the latter part of his
proposition. The long stretches of sandy
desert with the gigantic cactuses stand
ing as fitting sentinels over its desola-
ton made me wonder that the Indian
had ever consented to make that re-
gion his habitation. The miles and
miles of alfalfa fields covered with their
garment of unapproachable green,
which in places have supplanted the
desert, made it a matter of surprise that
so many white men had stayed away.
The misery of the crucifiXion thorn
above the ditch and the beauty and
bounty of the orange grove below it
mark the entire span between the bar
barism of past ages and the highest
achievements of nineteenth-century
civilization,
THE irrigation ditch is the conspic-
uous feature which separates the Big
Horn basin of Captain Bonneville's time
from the Big Horn basin of to-day. A
change which marks the displacement
of a tribe of Indians which, by common
consent, were the most adroit and in
dustrious thieves of this continent by
the establishment of communities of
farmers who are retaining the land
and creating homes under an irrigation
system which is known of and admired
beyond the borders of u own country
for the stability, justice and enlightened
principles which form it's basis.
''The success of irrigation has already
gone beyond the stage of experiment,
but to develop it's possibilities there
must be legislation and adequate social
and industrial organization. The great
est obstacle which confronts us is the
ignorance or Indifference which pre-
vents the enactment of one and develop
ment of the other. In this respect our
condition would have been far better if
the first settlement had been made on
the Pacific instead of the Atlantic slope;
in California instead of Virginia.
RECLAMATION OF THE WEST.
"Our growth in population and wealth
for the last 300 years has not been in the
direction of preparation for the recla-
nation of the arid west, but directly
against it. The Importance of the agri-
culture of humid lands has made the
reclamation of the arid half of this
country seemingly of little consequence
and has caused those who know nothing
of our necessities to regard our claim
for needed aid and the enactment Of
laws suited to our conditions to be both
unnecessary and impertinent.
ut is this preponderance of ignorance
and Indifference which constitutes our
greatest danger. The trouble is not to
secure a development Of some kind, but
to secure the right kind which will re-
suit in the largest and best use of u
and end in making irrigated
agriculture as stable and prosperous as
that dependent on rainfall. The diff
Guilty which confronts us now is not so
much a lack of resources as the oppor-
tunity to make the best use of what we
have.
at Is easier to obtain money to build
a canal than it is to secure the definite
abrogation of the doctrine of riparian
rights, which, so long as it is not abro-
gated, is a perpetual menace to the
value of the canal and to the homes 1t
creates. The trouble is not so much to
dispose of the public land as to secure
the enactment of land laws which will
put those lands in the hands of the men
who are willing to undergo the priva-
lions of pioneer life for the sake of en-
joying landed independence.
"It is these facts which gave signif1-
canoe and value to the stopping of the
wheels Of legislation at the close of the
last Congress by Senator Warren. 1t
aroused the people Of the east from
their Indifference to this question and
showed them that at last the people Of
the arid west had a cause. It united and
inspired the people Of the west to fur
Their effort in behalf of their section by
showing them that in the halls Of con-
gress thay had an able, Jealous and eff
fective advocate"