PULSE OF IRRIGATION. 



FARMERS TURNING TO THE IRRI- 

 GATED STATES. 



Discouraged by last season's drouth, 

 many Kansan and Nebraska farmers are 

 turning to the irrigated regions at the foot 

 of the Rocky Mountains. Recent dis- 

 patche's told of a party of farmers from 

 Nebraska looking into the Wheatland col- 

 ony in Wyoming, and others from the 

 drouth-stricken region have moved to not 

 less promising places in the irrigated dis- 

 trict. 



Undoubtedly the recent dry season was 

 a most effective plea for irrigation. While 

 farmers who depended on rainfall were 

 watching their crops shrivel, the agricul- 

 turists in the irrigated districts of the 

 West were computing their gains and 

 watching a rising market with satisfaction. 

 It is not strange that such an object lesson 

 had its effect on the farmers "of the Middle 

 West, and that there has been a subse- 

 quent demand for irrigated lands. 



While Kansas and Nebraska will always 

 be great agricultural states, it is equally 

 true that there will always be an element 

 of chance in farming there. The farmer 

 may have two or three excellent seasons, 

 but he never knows when fortune is going 

 to change, and is never certain that a 

 drbuth or a pest of grasshoppers will not 

 wipe out all his profits and set him back, 

 penniless and discouraged. 



In. Colorado or any of the other states 

 that depend upon irrigation, there is no 

 such element of chance. The only de- 

 mand is a preservation of forests, and gov- 

 ernment aid in the storing up of flood 

 waters. With irrigation fully developed, 

 the Rocky Mountain states will become 



havens of contentment and good fortune 

 for the farmers who are n.ow battling 

 against discouraging conditions in les 

 favored localities. Denver Republican, 

 Sept. 10. 



OTTER CREEK, UTAH, RESERVOIR. 



The report of J. W. Fairbanks, water 

 commissioner on the Sevier river and 

 Clear creek, has just been made regarding 

 the work done by the Otter creek reser- 

 voir. The water drawn from it during the 

 year was 576,000,000 cubic feet, which 

 was drawn out during the fifty days of the 

 irrigating season at the rate of 11.320,000 

 cubic feet per day. 



Put into a more common measure, this 

 immense artificial lake held 4,320,000,000 

 gallons, and 84,400, 000 gallons weredraWn 

 out of 'it every day of the fifty days in 

 which it was open. Still, the ordinary 

 mind will not grasp what Sevier county's 

 great reservoir is, but every man, woman 

 and child in the world could come and dip 

 a large bucketful of water out of it and 

 there would still be some left. 



Of this immense amount of water 1,323,- 

 000,000 gallons were lost by sinkage and 

 evaporation between the reservoir gate and 

 the heads of the various canals, leaving 

 2,997,000,000 gallons to enter the irrigat- 

 ing ditches. This supplied the various 

 canals with thirty-eight irrigating streams 

 of two and a half cubic feet per second 

 all an ordinary man needs for fifty days. 



The various canal companies that were 

 entitled to water received at the head of 

 their ditches every second during the fifty 



