378 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Throughout the pioneer period of their history the settlers of Utah 

 were under the direction of exceptionally able and resourceful leaders,, 

 who were aided by the fact that their followers were knit together by 

 a dominating religious impulse. These leaders had the wisdom to 

 adopt their methods and shape their institutions to conform to the 

 peculiar conditions and environments of a land strange and new to men 

 of English speech. They found that irrigation was necessary to their 

 existence in the home that they had chosen; and that the irrigation 

 canal must therefore be the basis of their industrial organization, 

 which was largely co-operation; hence, the size of their farms, which 

 are less than 30 acres upon the average, and the nature of their social 

 relations, which are close and neighborly. 



That the great material results which quickly followed could have 

 been realized without the cohesion which came from an association 

 dominated by religious discipline and controlled by the superior intel- 

 ligence of the head of the Mormon church, is doubtful; but that the 

 character of institutions in the valleys of Utah, both industrial and 

 social, was chiefly due to the environments in which they were placed 

 is beyond dispute. Co-operation became the dominant principle sim- 

 ply because the setlers were in a land without capital, aud it was be- 

 yond the power of the individual to tarn the mountain current from its 

 course and spread it upon his lands. Only the labor of many individ- 

 uals, working under organization and discipline, could make the canals 

 or distribute the waters. A small farm unit was chosen, not because 

 men were less greedy for land than in all other new countries, but be- 

 cause it was quickly seen that the extent of the water supply was the 

 measure of production, and their ability to provide this was small. 

 Diversified farming, which is one of the leading causes of the remark- 

 ably even prosperity of Mormon agriculture, was resorted to because 

 the territory was so far removed from other settlements that it was 

 compelled to become absolutely self-sustaining. The small farm unit 

 made near neighbors, and this advantage was still more enhanced by 

 assembling the farmers' homes in convenient village centers. One 

 reason for adopting this plan, in the first place, was doubtless for pro- 

 tection against the Indians, but it has become a permanent feature, 

 which is still adhered to in making new settlement because most satis- 

 factory to the social instinct. 



The discovery of gold in California created the Overland Trail, 

 which wound its tortuous course across the hitherto trackless wastes 

 of the arid domain. Its stations were usually along the banks of the 

 streams. In the neighborhood of these, settlers had established 

 themselves, and by means of simple furrows turned the waters of the 

 streams upon the bottom land. This was the extent of irrigation 

 throughout the vast region it traversed outside of Utah, before the 

 Union colony at Greeley,Colo., became the second historic instance of 



