IRRIGATION IN WYOMING. 



JOEL SHOMAKER. 



Wyoming is the fourth largest state in the Union. It comprises 

 a vast mountainous water-gathering area extending 420 miles east and 

 west and 300 miles north and south. Within the borders of this divis- 

 ion are nearly 63,000,000 acres of agricultural, grazing and timber 

 lands. The mean altitude of the state is about 6,500 feet, but many 

 mountain peaks reach 11,000 feet and hold perpetual snowbanks for 

 the immense water supply. Numerous large rivers and tributary 

 streams flow out from the watershed, estimated at 22,000,000 acres, 

 and contribute to the high waters of the Missouri on the north, Platte 

 on the east. Colorado on the south and Snake on the west. The irri- 

 gated area is less than 500,000 acres, hence the volume of water origi- 

 nating in the fountains of Wyoming, if properly impounded would be 

 sufficient to reclaim one hundred times the present cultivated fields. 



A territoritorial organization was formed July 25, 1868, and the 

 present state admitted July 10, 1890. The census returns for 1890 

 gave a population of 60,705, of whom 922 were Chinese and Indians. 

 The same enumeration gave 3,125 actual farm owners in the state, and 

 an average of 120 acres to the farm. The average first cost of water 

 right is $3.62 an acre, annual maintenance fee 50 cents an acre and 

 clearing and preparing for cultivation $8.23 an acre. Appropriations 

 of water have been made from over 600 streams and most of the farm- 

 ing is confined to the higher mountain valleys, where canals are easily 

 and cheaply built and the flow of streams can be conveniently 

 tapped. Wheat, oats, potatoes and hay are the chief products and the 

 yield is equal to any similar altitude throughout the irrigated west. 

 An estimate given by one of the leading farmers places the yield per 

 acre at the following figures: Oats, 60; wheat, 50; potatoes, 600 

 bushels, alfalfa, two good crops and wild hay four tons per acre. 



Wyoming contains twelve county divisions, each being more or 

 less irrigated by small farm ditches taken from the mountain creeks 

 or plains streams. There are a few flowing wells along the lines of 

 railway, but the principal source of irrigation is the individual or 

 farmer's ditch. The water is under state control through the provi- 

 sions of a district system authorized by an act of the first state legis- 

 lature. This law I think is the most perfect of any ever framed in tne 

 irrigated west, and it certainly prevents much waste, litigation and 

 damage so frequent in some sections. A state engineer and board of 

 control regulates all appropriations without resorting to courts, and 

 no appropriator is allowed more than he can put to a beneficial use. 

 The maximum being set to a limitation of one second foot for 70 acres 



