4.2 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



no man can object to the volume allowed for irrigating an acre. All 

 water is properly measured and evenly distributed by the use of weirs 

 and headgates, and the prior appropriations hold all right and tille 

 to the natural flow until it has been increased by reservoirs or other 

 means. 



In 1897 Wyoming produced 477,075 bushels of wheat, of which 

 76,332 bushels were shipped out of the county where grown. The oat 

 crop for the same year was 479,255 bushels, there being a surplus of 

 14,378 bushels. The hay crop reaches 275,000 tons annually and the 

 potato yield is about 200,000 bushels each year. Local demands usu- 

 ally hold up the prices of farm products above the general market 

 quotations. In 1897 the average price for oats was 35 cents a bushel, 

 for wheat 70 cents, corn 50 cents per bushel and hay $6.00 per ton. 

 Much of the agricultural production finds a purely local market be- 

 cause of the railroads being so far from the farming valleys. The 

 State has about 1,200 miles of railroad, or one mile to every 175 in 

 population, but the chief line the Union Pacific crosses the plains 

 and does not touch the best farming districts. The other lines reach 

 a portion of the agricultural lands and assist in marketing the surplus 

 farm products. 



Grazing of sheep and cattle is the chief industry of Wyoming and 

 gradually the farmers are beginning to realize the importance of con- 

 trolling this source of revenue by making it a part of the legitimate 

 farm productions. The time has been when rangers and farmers 

 were enemies and the two occupations were distinct, but with the era 

 of small farms, and the necessity for winter feeding of range stock, 

 the farmer has come out victorious, and every man ownin g sheep or 

 cattle will soon become a farmer, and take an interest in developing 

 the agricultural resources, of which stockraising is only one of the le- 

 gitimate branches. There are probably two million sheep owned in 

 the state, and the wool clip averages 8i pounds, which with an in- 

 crease of at least one-third of the original bands every year contri- 

 butes an immense sum to the farming communities. The range cattle 

 owned in Wyoming number probably three quarters of a million and 

 constitute the most valuable of all farm products shipped out of the 

 state. 



Albany county in southeastern Wyoming is chiefly a stockraising 

 district, fully 95 percent of the total farm area being devoted to grow- 

 ing forage plants. The Laramie plains are well watered on the west 

 and good crops of alfalfa, wheat, oats, potatoes and wild hay are 

 grown. The chief difficulty experienced in irrigating and farming 

 this section has been the disregard of cattlemen for the rights and 

 privileges of settlers and consequent destruction of crops by bands of 

 stock not properly guarded. This is true of many other sections of 

 the West, and colonists have much trouble in establishing homes 

 where sheep and cattle ranging, as a transient industry, is practiced, 



