276 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



would have been dear at five cents per acre before 

 the roads were built, could not be sold at any price 

 to actual settlers, even with the railroad in plain 

 eight, because of the dearth of fuel and timber, and 

 because also the means of rendering them fruitful 

 and their cultivation profitable are out of reach 

 of the ordinary pioneer. Hence, so long as the 

 valleys of the living streams proffer such obvious in- 

 vitations to settlement and tillage, by the aid of Irriga- 

 tion, I judge that the higher and dryer plains will 

 mainly be left to the half-savage herdsmen who rear 

 cattle and sheep without feeding and sheltering 

 them, by giving them the range of a quarter-section 

 to each bullock, and submitting to the loss of a hun- 

 dred head or so after each great and cold snow- 

 storm, as an unavoidable dispensation pf Providence. 



But in process of time even the wild herdsmen 

 will be softened into or replaced by regular farmers, 

 plowing and seeding for vegetables and small grains, 

 sheltering their habitations with trees, and sending 

 their children to school. This change involves 

 Irrigation ; and the following are among the ways 

 in which it will be effected : 



The Plains are nowhere absolutely flat (as I pre- 

 sume the " desert " of Sahara is not), but diversified 

 by slopes, and swells, and gentle ridges or divides, 

 affording abundant facilities for the distribution of 

 water. A well, sunk on the crest of one of these 

 divides, will be filled with living water at a depth 

 ranging from 50 to 100 feet. A windmill of modest 



