TME IRRIGATION AGE. 377 



ditches at Las Cruces, N. M., have an unbroken record of three hun- 

 dred years of service, the history of which is written in the banks of 

 the canal and in the fields irrigated. This is due to the sediment with 

 which the waters of the Rio Grande are laden. Year after year this 

 has slowly added layer on layer to the sides and bottom of these 

 ditches, until from being channels cut below the surface of the soil, 

 they are now raised two or three feet above. It is here that one can 

 yet find agriculture almost as primitive as that of the days of Pharaoh, 

 where grain is reaped with the sickle and thrashed by the tramping 

 of goats. 



From these settlements and from the conquered cities of Mexico 

 adventurous missionaries pushed their way still farther westward, 

 until they came in sight of the Pacific, teaching the Indians the crude 

 art of irrigation, which they had learned either in Spain or of the sim- 

 ple inhabitants of the interior, and making oases of bloom and fruit- 

 age among the hills and deserts of the coast. So came the early 

 churches and gardens of California and the first impulse toward the 

 conquest of its fertile soil, which must always be gratefully associated 

 with the memory of the Mission fathers. 



Measured by their cost or the skill required to construct them, the 

 small, rude furrows which watered these gardens are now of little im- 

 portance. Compared to the monumental engineering works which 

 have succeeded them, th^y possess today but little interest. The best 

 preserved of these mission gardens is now an insignificant feature of 

 a landscape which includes miles on miles of cement- lined aqueducts, 

 scores of pumping stations, and acres on acres of orange and lemon 

 orchards, cultivated with thoroughness and skill not surpassed in any 

 section of the Old World or the new It was far different at the end 

 of the eighteenth century, when the thirty or more of these gardens 

 which were scattered along the coast between the Mexican border and 

 San Francisco were the sole resting places for -weary travelers, and 

 their fruit and foliage the only relief in summer from the monotonous 

 landscape presented by the brown and arid hills which surrounded 

 them on every side. They were under these conditions not only suc- 

 cessful centers of influence from which to carry on the christianizing 

 of the Indian tribes, but forces tending to break up the migratory im- 

 pulse by the establishing of homes among the early Spanish explorers. 



For the beginnings of Anglo-Saxon irrigation in this country we 

 must go to the Salt Lake valley of Utah, where in July, 1849, the 

 Mormon pioneers turned the clear waters of City creek upon the sun- 

 baked and alkaline soil in order that they might plant the very last of 

 their stock of potatoes in the hope of bringing forth a crop to save 

 the little company from starvation. 



Utah is interested not merely because it is the cradle of our mod- 

 ern irrigation industry, but even more so as showing how important 

 are organizations and public control in the diversion and use of rivers. 



