"WYOMIM AGRICULTURAL STATE" 



-ADDRESS ON THE- 



RECLAMATION TH F E ARID LANDS 



BEFORE THE 



CHEYENNE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, JAN. 16, 1894, 



By ELWOOD MEAD, State Engineer. 



Wyoming as an Agricultural State is an anomaly; an anomaly difficult 

 of comprehension by students of irrigation from the outside world and one 

 which the friends of irrigation within the State find hard to explain. In 

 this I am speaking more particularly of the agriculture of the cultivated 

 field and exclude that form of agriculture which is more intimately asso- 

 ciated with what is known as the range industries. I do this because it is 

 my purpose tonight to talk of what we need rather than of what we have. 



Naturally, it is a State of great opportunities. We are in the latitude 

 belt of the great agricultural states of this country. As an arid State we 

 have good.aeighbors. ' Excluding California, Colorado, Utah and Montana 

 rank first, second and third among the arid states in the value of their farm 

 produets. The State is favored^in the volume and availability of its water 

 supply. Colorado, Wyoming and Montana provide eighty-five per cent of 

 the available water supply of the entire arid region, and of these three, Wyo- 

 ming stsnds first or second. In the mileage of ditches the State takes high 

 rank. In the excellence of its water laws and the ^administrative system 

 which they provide, it is the accepted model of the ^hole arid region. 

 From the census report of 1890 down to the last irrigation congress there 

 has been only commendation for our water laws. 



Withjertile soil and abundant water supply, satisfactory water laws, 

 the example and encouragement given by the success of irrigation in neigh- 



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