THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



103 



midst of the unknown there are sufficient established 

 facts to deprive the Los Angeles speech of its very 

 essence and to justify every hope which the men of 

 the arid region have held out to the world. 



The leaders of irrigation thought have 

 The Vital , 



Point is asserted that they can make homes for 



Conceded. m jnj ons o f people in the western half of 

 the continent. They have said that they will give 

 new life to popular institutions and evolve new forms 

 of civilization. And when Major Powell emerges 

 from the deep and narrow canyon of statistical lore, 

 and steps out on the wide plain of human judgment 

 and conviction, he demonstrates that there is, after 

 all, no difference between his predictions and our 

 hopes. After making every deduction and bringing 

 down the estimate of water supply and irrigable lands 

 to the narrowest limitations, he says (page 65, volume 

 six, /. A.}: "When these acres are cultivated by 

 methods of irrigation they will be found wonderfully 

 productive, and their products "will support a popula- 

 tion as great as that found in the United States at the 

 Present time." That is to say, we can support in Arid 

 America at least 65,000,000 people. If there is water 

 and land enough for that, then there is sufficient to 

 justify every claim which has ever been made by 

 western men. Major Powell has indicated his inten- 

 tion to be present at Denver, and we predict that he 

 will have a cordial reception and that his great 

 knowledge and experience will be freely drawn upon 

 * during the process of formulating plans and policies. 



One of the most important movements 

 The 



Interstate of the past year has been the vigorous 

 Association. carn p a jg n carried on by the Interstate 

 Irrigation Association, whose headquarters are at 

 Salina, Kansas. The president of this organization 

 is E. R. Moses, of Great Bend, a gentleman of the 

 best Kansas type, by which we mean clear-brained, 

 energetic and boundlessly enthusiastic. A very large 

 number of conventions have been held and the 

 association has maintained a creditable organ, The 

 Irrigation Farmer, edited by J. L. Bristow. The 

 work of Hon. J. S. Emery, national lecturer, has been 

 principally carried on under the auspices of this 

 organization. Judge Emery has been very actively 

 engaged in this work, and has constantly grown in 

 usefulness and influence. Besides Messrs. Moses, 

 Emery and Bristow, the executive committee in- 



cludes A. W. Stubbs, of Garden City; J. K. Wright and 

 Prof. Robert Hay, of Junctfon City; B. A. McAllaster, 

 Omaha; John E. Frost, Topeka; R. Harding and 

 G. W. Clements, Wichita; Thomas Knight, Kansas 

 City; I. A. Fort, North Platte, and Alston Ellis, 

 Fort Collins, Col. This is cne of the strongest ex- 

 ecutive boards ever organized in the West, and it is 

 unnecessary to go beyond a study of its personel to 

 understand just why the movement in the semi-arid 

 region has been so vigorous and successful this year. 



The Kansas people are confronted by 



Kansas ...*.... , 



has High many difficulties in the development of 



Hopes. irrigation plans. There is a vast ex- 

 panse to be watered and but a very meager discharge 

 of surface streams to meet the demand. The best 

 streams flowing into Kansas are already utilized 

 nearer their sources. And yet Kansas is determined 

 to irrigate and, in the end, we believe will develop a 

 system which has some very marked advantages 

 over those prevailing elsewhere. The windmill and 

 pumping plants in the neighborhood of Garden City 

 foreshadow the coming system of western Kansas. 

 A few years will show us a vast number of these in- 

 dividual plants, and while it is more difficult for teh 

 farmer to provide himself with the means of irriga- 

 tion at first under this method than it is for him to 

 tap a lateral flowing from some large canal, in the 

 end he is more independent in every sense of the 

 word. In another department of this journal Judge 

 Gregory descants upon the advantages of the Kansas 

 plan as illustrated in Finney county. The cooper- 

 ative plan of irrigation, suggested by Mr. John G. 

 Steffee, of Wichita, in the June number of THE 

 IRRIGATION AGE also promises to do a great deal for 

 western Kansas. Under this plan farmers would 

 have their homes on a quarter-section which can be 

 thoroughly irrigated, this area being divided into ten 

 acre tracts upon which they could raise a variety 

 of products necessary to the support of their families. 

 They would then operate the outlying farms, getting 

 fair crops in some years. The ten acres of irrigated 

 soil would save them from the disaster now so fre- 

 quently encountered under the prevailing system of 

 dry farming. We have the highest hopes of the suc- 

 cess of irrigation in Kansas upon the lines now being 

 urged by the various associations, interstate, state and 

 county. 



