4 24 THE 1RRIGA TION A GE. 



This section is picturesque as well as interesting. Despite its 

 barrenness, it has a beauty peculiarly its own of which the charm is 

 irresistible Advancing on the plateaus and away from any of the 

 lower river valleys, one can see ahead always a low range of hills that 

 cut off the sky with a wavy line. Ten, fifteen, perhaps twenty miles 

 away, lie these hills. Once they have been' reached and mounted, 

 beyond and still in the same direction, another range appears. 



This scene is repeated as step by step one climbs the ranges, 

 traverses the plateaus, and goes on to more ranges and more plateaus 

 beyond. As they recede from the valleys the ranges grow more bare 

 of vegetation, and are traversed with gorges ever deeper, plowed 

 through them by the rain that when it falls comes in torrents. 



From a distance and in the bright sunshine the sides of these 

 hills look like the chalk cliffs of England that gave the island its old 

 name of Albion. Close at hand the soil is of a pale, yellowish gray. 

 With the gleam of the sun on it and at a distance it is of dazzling 

 cream color. 



But the greatest beauties of this region are accessible only to 

 those who reach the higher levels of the plateaus. Then vision is 

 limited only by the power of the eye or the condition of the atmos- 

 phere, and the green of the plain, instead of ending with a wavy rim 

 like the edge of a great scalloped dish, melts into the blue of the sky. 



SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM. 



Seven acres of this vacant land, approximately, to every man, 

 woman, and child in Nebraska. And what is to become of it? 



Already irrigation has begun to solve the problem. Since the 

 constitutionalty of Nebraska irrigating laws has been established 

 nearly 1,500 miles of irrigation canals have been completed in the 

 state and more than 1,000,000 acres of land made available for farming 

 purposes. This has been done at a cost of 1,500,000 in round 

 numbers, but the work has been carried on only in the parts of the 

 state where the problem could be the most easily solved. There 

 remains for determination the question whether irrigation can be 

 effected for the higher plateaus without expense so great as to make 

 it impracticable from a commercial standpoint'. 



Irrigation districts can be formed under the Nebraska laws in 

 much the same fashion, legally considered, as that in which park 

 districts can be created in Illinois. State irrigation conventions have 

 been held from time to time, and at the latest of these figures were 

 presented showing that perpetual water rights can be secured under 

 the district law at a cost of $3.50 an acre, which cost, when purchased 

 from private irrigation corporations, $10 an acre. Hence, when the 

 question of how to irrigate is answered, as to method, the work doubt- 

 less will be done largely by the people, organized into irrigation dis- 

 tricts, rather than by corporations. 



