326 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



comes arid, or deficient in the quantity necessary for favorable action on 

 vegetable growths. Though a desert surface intensifies the aridity, yet 

 an ordinarily dry and denuded surface yielding no moisture by evap- 

 oration soon renders the surface atmosphere unduly dry and caustic. 

 Tiie summer winds may even approach a sirocco in quality, and those of 

 winter are piercing and destructive. The water-surface of any one of 

 the great lakes is quite sufacient to neutralize either extreme for the 

 countries lying on tiie line of atmospheric circulation across these lakes; 

 and while the actual rain-fall of Buifalo, Niagara, and Lockport is but 

 small, the air is rarely or never biting in its aridity, as when it reaches 

 the eastern and cultivated border of tlie plains after traversing hun- 

 dreds of miles of surface destitute of watej-, forests, or other moisture- 

 yielding conditions. 



The practical question is whether, with a general climate of constant 

 rain-fall, the smaller <iuantity of such rain-fall can be diffused and dis- 

 tributed so as to sustain the constant vegetation of the central and 

 eastern States. What may be accomplished by replaciug that which 

 we are accustomed to regard as the natural covering of the soil in the 

 forests? And what further by cultivation, by special irrigation, and by 

 shelter from the present unrestricted sweep of surface winds? In 

 answer, it may at least be assumed that important ameliorations of the 

 local and surface conditions are certainly within control. And the whole 

 field of action is in a climate especially mild as compared with the north 

 of Europe. The denuded uplands of Germany, the exposed mountain 

 districts of Scotland, and other localities of the eastern continent where 

 cultivation struggles to reclaim every inch of surface that may be made 

 to yield the smallest product for human support, present examples of 

 deterioration. The entire area of the plains, and all the plateaus, mesas, 

 and basins of the interior need nothing but water to make them iiro- 

 ductive in valuable staples. Everywhere within the United States it is 

 warm enough, and the natural soil is rich enough. So great is this natural 

 capacity that every observer and writer who has visited these districts 

 believes that irrigation would be profitable in every case where it would 

 be possible ; the general presumption being that many of the valleys 

 and river bottoms near the mountains will continue to be deficient in rain, 

 and can only be cultivated by the aid of irrigation. The concentration 

 of settlements in the basin districts of Utah and Idaho has fortunately 

 tested this capacity for profitable cultivation by irrigation very thor- 

 oughly, and it is pronounced successful iu all cases. The mountain- 

 streams are abundant and i^ermanent, showing a profusion of summer 

 as well as winter rains on their summits. The rain which would be 

 sufficient, probably, if equally distributed over valleys as well as 

 mountains, is condensed by attraction on the higher ranges, and there- 

 fore is not constant in the valleys. In short, it is not the general aver- 

 age supply that is so much at fault as the local distriljution. 



But the districts on the eastern slope of the greater mountain-plateaus 

 are probably the most difficult to deal with. The great ranges have 

 exhausted most of the moisture of the aerial volumes from Avhich the 

 summer rains fall, and until their disturbing influence has been wholly 

 exhausted the deficiency of rain continues. Probably a belt at Denver 

 and near the eastern foot of the mountains has the quite insufficient 

 quantity of 15 inches of rain annually, and another, stretching two hun- 

 dred to three hundred miles eastward, has but 20 to 24 inches. This is 

 not of itself decidedly adverse, and cultivation might here succeed with- 

 out irrigation, if adequate shelter and local ameliorations could be intro- 

 duced. Possibly a portion of the drier belt could be so cultivated 



