68 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of water throughout this valley has an important bearing upon 

 our ability to use the rest of that land through the Rocky 

 Mountains) — that increase, I say, depends not upon the 

 greater fall of water, by any means, but upon the prevention of 

 evaporation. Now let us see what the condition of things was 

 when the Mormons came there. Here was this immense valley, 

 most of it a barren plain, so that in the summer time it was so 

 hot that the winds came over it thirsty and ready to lick up the 

 waters and carry them over the mountains, and the water that 

 came from the mountains and through the canons came down 

 in streams which made their way with the greatest rapidity to 

 Salt Lake. There was that lake and the streams, there being 

 no trees or anything upon their banks to prevent evaporation, 

 all exposed at once to the hot wind that came from the south, 

 which, having no trees in its way, swept along very rapidly, and 

 constantly carried this water off. Now let us see what the Mor- 

 mons did. They stopped this water coming out of the mouths 

 of the canons. They dug canals all along the base of the 

 mountains, and, instead of allowing it to come down into the 

 lake, they carried it along in the canals, keeping them all the 

 time full, and then they tapped them in a hundred places, taking 

 the water along in rivulets, making this whole land like a sponge, 

 and not allowing the water to go down into Salt Lake until it 

 had permeated the soil. Well, you say that so much water is 

 apparently lost, — that Salt Lake, having so much less water 

 coming into it, would be so much smaller. But these canals go 

 through land that is now covered with herbage of every kind, 

 and rows of cotton-wood trees and other trees, which shoot up 

 as if by magic. And that is not only the case in the compar- 

 atively small territory about Salt Lake, but all through that val- 

 ley. Most people who have visited Salt Lake City for a few days, 

 come back thinking they understand the whole Mormon question. 

 The truth is, they see but a small sprinkling of the Mormons 

 there. They ought to go down through the Territory one hun- 

 dred or one hundred and fifty miles, and find out what they 

 have done. We find now the valley through this entire Ter- 

 ritory, instead of being a dry, barren plain, over which the 

 wind used to pass so rapidly, a country covered with vegetation, 

 with grass, with corn, with grain of various kinds, and with 

 groves of trees, so that the wind, in the first place, moving up 



