NEBRASKA'S IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT. 



WATER SUPPLY-CLIMATIC CONDITIONS STATE LEGISLATION. 



BY R. BEECHER HOWELL, C. E. 



ALINE drawn in a southwesterly direction across 

 the State of Nebraska from the northeast corner 

 of Knox county to the southwest corner of Fur- 

 uas county, traverses approximately the medial line 

 of a belt receiving an average mean rainfall of about 

 twenty-four inches per annum. To the east of this 

 belt the precipitation is greater, while to the west it 

 decreases in a regular ratio. The line above referred 

 to may be accepted also as the line of demarkation be- 

 tween the humid and semi-humid portions of the 

 State. The humid region of Nebraska, as thus de- 

 rined, comprising about 82,000 square miles of terri- 

 tory, contains a million inhabitants, and is unexcelled 

 in agricultural resources as compared with any other 

 State in the Union. Its soil is fertile to a degree; 

 every cereal and other product known to the temper- 

 ate zone can be cultivated here with the assurance of 

 a harvest as abundant and certain as that which be- 

 falls any other region of the world of the same lati- 

 tude. If Nebraska only included its humid counties 

 alone it would still be a great State, exceeding in area 

 West Virginia, Maine or South Carolina; it would con- 

 tain four times as many square miles as the state of 

 Massachusetts, and its extent would be but one-fifth 

 less than that of Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, or of all 

 the New England States combined. 



THE SEMI-ARID PORTION. 



But Nebraska is all this and more. To the west of 

 the line above mentioned are 44,000 square miles of 

 magnificent prairie lands, carpeted with grasses that 

 render this section one of the finest stock ranges of 

 the great West. With the exception of about 15,000 

 square miles, which compose the sand hill areas of 

 this part of the State, the fertility of the soil is as great 

 as that of the lands just west of the Missouri river, and 

 in years of plentiful rainfall the crops produced in 

 this region have been the envy of the farmers of the 

 humid section of the State. While the climate of this 

 portion of Nebraska is delightful, the rainfall is un- 

 certain, and for this reason the settlement of the 

 buffalo grassed table lands lying between the Platte 

 and the Republican rivers has been the source of dis- 

 appointment and misfortune to those who were lured 

 thither by the smiling prospects of the dark green 

 prairies in June. But experience alone is the great 

 teacher of the limitations and possibilities of develop- 

 ment in the unpopulated regions of the new world, 

 and so it came that a hundred and fifty thousand peo- 

 ple found themselves located in the semi-humid por- 

 tion of Nebraska before it became notoriously evident 

 that the uncertainty of rainfall in that part of the State 

 renders agriculture, as a pursuit, uncertain and hence 

 unremunerative, 



Whatever may have been the former hopes for 

 Western Nebraska as a rain belt agricultural region 

 they have all been dispelled by the short crops har- 

 vested since 1890, culminating in the total failure of 

 last year. The people of the East have heard much 

 of the suffering and misery due to the drought and 

 hot winds of a year ago, and to those unacquainted 

 with the situation it has been the impression that the 



misfortune was a general one throughout the State^ 

 While it is true that agriculture was far from remun- 

 erative, even in the eastern counties, during 1894, yet 

 it is equally true that suffering and privation was con- 

 fined almost if not wholly to the semi-humid region,, 

 as above defined. Eastern Nebraska is no more sub- 

 ject to droughts than Michigan, Ohio or Indiana, but in 

 the western counties of the State it must be acknowl- 

 edged that agriculture without the aid of irrigation is 

 so uncertain in its returns as to render its pursuit, to 

 say the least, undesirable. This conclusion was prac- 

 tically reached some five years ago, and since that 

 time the progress of irrigation in the great valleys of 

 the State has been remarkable indeed. 



Nowhere in the semi-arid region is the altitude so 

 favorable, the available water so abundant or the 

 problem of reclamation so simple as in Western 

 Nebraska. In considering locations, altitude is often 

 lost sight of by the uninitiated, and yet, this is a 

 factor that has a most important bearing upon the 

 success of agriculture in the arid West. Those look- 

 ing for irrigated lands, however, need have no misgiv- 

 ings upon this score so far as Nebraska is concerned,, 

 for so favorable is the elevation of even the high Table 

 lauds in the extreme western portion of the State, that 

 whenever sufficient moisture is present corn can be 

 grown equal in quantity and quality to any produced 

 in the vicinity of the Missouri river. 



THE WATER SUPPLY. 



Excluding the Platte river there are four water 

 sheds from which water supplies can be obtained: those 

 of the White, Niobrara, Loup and Republican rivers, 

 affording in the aggregate several thousand cubic feet 

 per second. The Platte river, which alone has its 

 source in the mountains, is a peculiarly favorable 

 stream for irrigation purposes. Not only does its 

 flood season occur during the months of June and July 

 when its discharge varies from 6,000 to 12,000 second 

 feet, thus coinciding with the period of greatest use, 

 but its declivity, like that of most western streams, is 

 relatively great and its banks low. Here, as in the 

 other valleys of the State, little or no rock that cannot 

 be plowed, is met with in the construction of canals. 

 The broad level bottom lands and benches afford espec- 

 ially advantageous opportunities for the use of graders 

 in the removal of earth. As a consequence, earth- 

 work is cheaply done and the cost of reclamation cor- 

 respondingly low. When we add to these facts the 

 additional fact that there is a population in the semi- 

 humid region exceeding that of Montana, or that of 

 Wyoming and Idaho combined, the causes responsible 

 for the rapid advancement of the irrigation industry 

 in the State are rendered apparent. 



The first considerable canal was constructed in 1383 

 in Lincoln county in the vicinity of North Platte, yet 

 little water was used therefrom until in 1889 and 1890. 

 Since then, however, the use of water has rapidly in- 

 creased and the number of canals so multiplied that 

 in October of 1894 there were, according to the re- 

 port of the State Commissioner of Labor, 689 miles of 

 canal completed, covering in the neighborhood of 



