10 LANDS OF THE ARID REGION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
ADVANTAGES OF IRRIGATION. 
There are two considerations that make irrigation attractive to the 
agriculturist. Crops thus cultivated are not subject to the vicissitudes of 
rainfall; the farmer fears no droughts; his labors are seldom interrupted and 
his crops rarely injured by storms. This immunity from drought and storm 
renders agricultural operations much more certain than in regions of greater 
humidity. Again, the water comes down from the mountains and plateaus 
freighted with fertilizing materials derived from the decaying vegetation and 
soils of the upper regions, which are spread by the flowing water over the 
cultivated lands. It is probable that the benefits derived from this source 
alone will be full compensation for the cost of the process. Hitherto these 
benefits have not been fully realized, from the fact that the methods 
employed have been more or less crude. When the flow of water over the 
land is too great or too rapid the fertilizing elements borne in the waters are 
carried past the fields, and a washing is produced which deprives the lands 
irrigated of their most valuable elements, and little streams cut the fields 
with channels injurious in diverse ways. Experience corrects these errors, 
and the irrigator soon learns to flood his lands gently, evenly, and econom- 
ically. It may be anticipated that all the lands redeemed by irrigation in 
the Arid Region will be highly cultivated and abundantly productive, and 
agriculture will be but slightly subject to the vicissitudes of scant and 
excessive rainfall. 
A stranger entering this Arid Region is apt to conclude that the soils 
are sterile, because of their chemical composition, but experience demon- 
strates the fact that all the soils are suitable for agricultural purposes when 
properly supplied with water. It is true that some of the soils are over- 
charged with alkaline materials, but these can in time be ‘‘washed out”. 
Altogether the fact suggests that far too much attention has heretofore been 
paid to the chemical constitution of soils and too little to those physical con- 
ditions by which moisture and air are supplied to the roots of the growing 
plants, 
