PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ARID REGION. 11 
COOPERATIVE LABOR OR CAPITAL NECESSARY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
IRRIGATION. 
Small streams can be taken out and distributed by individual enter- 
prise, but codperative labor or aggregated capital must be employed in 
taking out the larger streams. 
The diversion of a large stream from its channel into a system of canals 
demands a large outlay of labor and material. To repay this all the waters 
so taken out must be used, and large tracts of land thus become dependent 
upon a single canal. It is manifest that a farmer depending upon his own 
labor cannot undertake this task. To a great extent the small streams are 
already employed, and but a comparatively small portion of the irrigable 
lands can be thus redeemed; hence the chief future development of irrigation 
must come from the use of the larger streams. Usually the confluence of the 
brooks and ereeks which forma large river takes place within the mountain 
district which furnishes its source before the stream enters the lowlands 
where the waters are to be used. The volume of water carried by the small 
streams that reach the lowlands before uniting with the great rivers, or 
before they are lost in the sands, is very small when compared with the 
volume of the streams which emerge from the mountains as rivers. This 
fact is important. If the streams could be used along their upper ramifi- 
cations while the several branches are yet small, poor men could oecupy 
the lands, and by their individual enterprise the agriculture of the country 
would be gradually extended to the limit of the capacity of the region; 
but when farming is dependént upon larger streams such men are barred 
from these enterprises until codperative labor can be organized or capital 
induced to assist. Before many years all the available smaller streams 
throughout the entire region will be occupied in serving the lands, and 
then all future development will depend on the conditions above described. 
In Utah Territory cobperative labor, under ecclesiastical organization, 
has been very successful. Outside of Utah there are but few instances 
where it has been tried; but at Greeley, in the State of Colorado, this 
system has been eminently successful. 
