274 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



private wells will do the rest. Our general government should pro- 

 vide the money and at once begin the work which will ultimately 

 reclaim and put into use the 550,000,000 acres of arid lands which are 

 now so useless, simply from lack of water. 



An annual appropriation equal to one-tenth the amount in the 

 river and harbor bill, would probably be sufficient and a complete 

 system of fixed reservoirs should be built so as to provide sufficient 

 water at all times. Such a low charge should be made to the settler 

 for the water, as would, during a long period of years, simply repay 

 the government for the actual cost of the work already done. The 

 government can well afford to be exceedingly liberal with those 

 actual settlers, who, by the aid of the water furnished, shall reclaim 

 this land that is now entirely useless, for the added products will 

 benefit the whole nation, far more than the amount of expenditure. 

 Here is a department, wherein the general government should, far 

 more than in any other, freely spend its money, for ample and direct 

 returns are sure to come, far in excess of the amount spent. But the 

 individual farmer should not continue idly waiting for the general 

 government, nor the states nor even his community, or some large 

 corporation, to raise a large sum of money, and build a vast system 

 of works for irrigation, in any region that is now partly or thickly 

 settled, in the older or some of the newer states of our grand union. 

 Each and every individual farmer should turn over a new leaf, and 

 till his soil with a new energy, and increased thorouhgness, plowing 

 deep into the sub-soil which will give him added moisture, then by 

 adding fertilizers and continued thorough work, he will increase his 

 crop from two to four fold. If then the natural rainfall in his region 

 proves insufficient, to crown his own thorough efforts with proper 

 success, let him utilize the supply of water everywhere stored or 

 flowing beneath the surface of his own land, and by means of wells, 

 let him bring it upon the surface and distribute it over his soil thus 

 irrigating it to the extent necessary .to insure success. 



This can be done at small actual expense, by means of windmills, 

 thus utilizing Nature's own means, wherever the flow or body of 

 water lies near the surface as is the case in most eastern states, and 

 especially in western Kansas and Nebraska, where the entire surface 

 of this dry upland is underlaid by the so-called Tertairy water 

 deposit, which extends from the Rocky mountains east to the 

 Missouri valley and in most places at a depth of about fifty feet below 

 the surface. This deposit is already tapped by more than 2,000 

 wells, each of which irrigates a few acres, and its inexhaustable 

 supply is proved by the Hutchinson Packing Company, who, from a 

 space 150x150 feet, are pumping daily, 5,000,000 gallons of water, 

 with no apparent effect upon the supply. This is pumped from a 

 depth not exceeding forty feet and is enough to cover 6,000 acres to a 

 depth of one foot each year. Beside this Tertiary supply, is another, 



