4 8 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ries disjoint almost every section that topographical 

 affinity would make one, and parcel it off hither and 

 yon for its political affiliations. In fact, there is 

 hardly a boundary line in all the West, that is not, 

 even when judged by ordinary standards, in some 

 way an outrage on nature and a menace to the best 

 interests of the people. 



But it is as a country dependent for its prosperity 

 on irrigation that the West suffers its most serious in- 

 jury from this unhappy system of division. Here it 

 is not the land that forms the basis of the State, but 

 the water. And if elsewhere it is desirable that the 

 State be founded on contiguous land areas, in the arid 

 West it is ten fold more important that the State be 

 based on undivided water systems or drainage basins. 



There are many reasons why the entire drainage 

 area of a stream or river system used for irrigation 

 should be under one State authority. The inhabit- 

 ants of such a territory are of necessity neighbors in 

 greater or less degree, with interests at the same 

 time common and conflicting. The question of water 

 rights is everywhere a delicate one. The present 

 controllable water supply of very few streams is ade- 

 quate to the land areas available for irrigation, and 

 the farmers along their upper, middle and lower 

 courses are the parties to constant disputes and liti- 

 gations. The difficulty in the settlement of such 

 cases is vastly aggravated where the course of the 

 stream lies through different political divisions. And 

 there is no river of considerable size in all the irriga- 

 tion country that does not flow through two or more 

 States or Territories. 



POLITICAL UNIFICATION DEMANDED. 



But these reasons are insignificant when compared 

 with the great reason for demanding a political unifi- 

 cation of each drainage or irrigation district. Under 

 the guidance of wise leadership, the time has now 

 come for a grand onward movement in the irrigation 

 interests of the country. Heretofore, what has been 

 done for the reclamation of the desert has been des- 

 ultory and without system. Individuals or companies 

 have seized upon portions of streams here and there 

 at hap-hazard, and have used what waters they hap- 

 pened to need, without reference to the greatest util- 

 ity to be obtained from each river as a whole. In 

 this manner much water is wasted; often the best 

 lands are not cultivated; the catchment areas are 

 given no care and are despoiled of their forests, na- 

 ture's great conservators of moisture ; the vast spring 

 freshets go to utter waste, which, held in reserve, 

 would add immensely to the water supply. But it 

 has been determined that all this shall be changed. 

 Each river basin must be carefully investigated to 

 learn its actual and its possible capacity; the most 

 available lands must be sought out and irrigated at 

 the expense of those of lesser value; the catchment 

 areas must be defined and protected from spoliation ; 

 the spring floods and storm waters must be saved to 

 augment the waning currents of mid-summer. For 

 this, great works of engineering are demanded. Big 

 canals must be constructed, scores and even hund- 

 reds of miles in length. Immense reservoirs must 

 be built to contain millions of acre-feet of water. In 

 short, each irrigation district must be taken as a unit 

 and developed in its entirety from the first tricklings 

 of its head waters to the last acre of its agriculture. 

 And such a work cannot be accomplished to the 

 best advantage unless the whole system of lands, 

 waters, catchment areas, canals and reservoirs, is 

 under one set of laws and one State authority. 



Moreover, such undertakings are too vast tor pri- 

 vate enterprise; they must be public works. Corpo- 

 rations could doubtless be formed to carry many of 

 them into effect, but the country has already been 

 ably warned against the danger of burdening the 

 prosperity of the great West with the incubus of 

 monopolistic corporations in control of its lands and 

 waters. 



The United States Irrigation Survey has given this 

 new movement a good start, but the most that the 

 Federal authority can do is to perform certain pre- 

 liminary work and point out the way for future 

 achievement. It may be taken as a settled fact that 

 the National government will never undertake the 

 construction of these great irrigation works. They 

 belong by right to the State governments, and were 

 the State boundaries properly drawn, it is probable 

 that no other method would be suggested for their 

 construction than by, or under the direction of, the 

 States in which they are to exist. 



CONFLICT OF RIVERS AND BOUNDARIES. 



But the States are constituted in the worst possible 

 manner for such works. A little study of the map 

 will show how the water systems of the arid and sub- 

 humid regions are crossed and re-crossed by State 

 lines, making systematic irrigation development by 

 the States an impossibility under existing boundaries. 



Beginning on the north, we find the Missouri river, 

 for a long distance, free from this difficulty, save that 

 a goodly share of the streams that come to it from the 

 north have their rise across the Canadian border. 

 But the first large branch of the Missouri, the Yellow- 

 stone system, is about equally divided between the 

 States of Wyoming and Montana, the waters being 

 caught in large measure in the former State, and flow- 

 ing northerly and easterly into the latter. The next 

 affluent of the Missouri from this region is the Little 

 Missouri, which rises in Wyoming and flows through 

 corners of Montana and South Dakota into North 

 Dakota. Below the Little Missouri are several minor 

 streams, which lie wholly in North Dakota, and one 

 whose entire course is in South Dakota; but the head 

 waters of the Grand river come from both States, 

 and the north and south forks of the Cheyenne each 

 flow a part of their course in Wyoming and a part 

 in South Dakota, the irrigation on each stream being 

 about equally divided between the two states. The 

 White river rises in Nebraska and flows into South 

 Dakota, while the Niobrara rises in Wyoming and 

 has the rest of its course in Nebraska, with branches 

 coming from South Dakota. The irrigation on the 

 North Platte system lies partly in Colorado, where 

 the river has its origin, partly in Wyoming, through 

 which it flows with circuitous course, and partly in 

 Nebraska; while the South Platte and its tributaries 

 furnish other large irrigation areas likewise divided 

 among these three States. Kansas, Nebraska and 

 Colorado share the waters of the Republican river 

 and its branches. 



The irrigation on the Arkansas river is mostly in 

 Colorado, but extends nearly 200 miles across the 

 Kansas border and has already caused much conflict 

 as to the right to the scant water supply, a conflict not 

 likely to be lessened by the construction of the stor- 

 age reservoirs located by the Irrigation Survey in the 

 Colorado mountain region. The Cimarron river flows 

 back and forth across the border that separates New 

 Mexico from Colorado and Kansas from Oklahoma. 

 The Canadian river's course through the arid district 

 is about half and half in New Mexico and Texas; 



