IRRIGATION. 417 



The National Government has already begun in part the work of 

 reclamation by setting aside the summits of the mountains from which 

 issue the rivers most important in irrigation, and creating these into 

 forest reserves for the beneficial influence exercised upon the stream 

 flow. It is necessary to go still farther, and build within these forests 

 certain large reservoirs to store the flood waters and regulate the flow 

 of the streams. These should never fall into private or speculative 

 control, but should be administered for the benetit of the communities 

 situated often in various States. 



The people of the country have made strenuous efforts to utilize 

 some of the lands now waste, and by individual experiment and failure 

 have demonstrated that certain portions of these crops can lie raised 

 without irrigation. The accompanying small map (fig. 5) shows, in 

 black, the localities where crops have been and can sometimes be 

 raised by what is known as dry farming; that is, without the arti- 

 ticial application of water. East of the 97th meridian nearly all crops 

 are thus raised, but west of it the dry-farming areas rapidly diminish 

 in extent. In western Kansas and Nebraska there are comparatively 

 few places where crops are successful more than three years out of 

 five. During the years or cycles of unusual moisture settlement has 

 progressed westward across these States and people have built homes, 

 using for building material the tough sod which covers the ground, 

 this being the only available material in a country destitute of trees 

 and stones. The recurring droughts, however, have compelled many 

 of these people to abandon their dry farms, and thousands of homes 

 have been ruined, the only people left in the country being those who 

 have secured a water supply through wells. The contrasting condi- 

 tions are illustrated in PI. IV, showing the ruined sod house and the 

 successful home, the latter rendered possible by obtaining a water 

 supply. 



The laws and customs governing the riparian rights in the humid and 

 semihumid portions of the country have been modified or made of no 

 effect in the States and Territories lying within the arid region. It is 

 there recognized that water is part of the common stock necessary for life 

 and industry, to be drawn upon by all in accordance with certain orderly 

 procedures. The United States, the original owner of the land, and 

 still the possessor of the greater part of it, alone has the right and the 

 ability to conserve the waters for the best interests of the several 

 States and communities. Proprietorship of water should never be 

 recognized, but the rights of each person who can put a certain 

 amount to beneficial use should be clearly recognized and guarded in 

 the order of priority, beneficial use being the measure and the limit of 

 any right. 



The laws in the different States of the arid region differ widely, but 

 there are certain underlying principles which are being established by 

 sm 1901 27 



