THE IRRIGATION AGE 177 



the crust of the earth was dry. The watercourses had been cut into 

 deep channels, were torrents when rain fell, and then ran immediately 

 dry. Springs had lost their affluence. The blear desert had over- 

 spread the meadow. 



The hydrographers were followed by the agrostologists of the Ag- 

 ricultural Department. They found that the grasses, forage plants, 

 and browse shrubs were gone. All nature's nice adjustment to pre- 

 vent evaporation from the soil and to open it for absorption by the 

 plant roots had disappeared. Her equilibrium had been destroyed. 

 The water no longer went steadily and slowly through the soil to feed 

 springs and maintain the even flow of streams without deepening 

 their channels; but it rushed over the denuded surface, eroded it, and 

 appeared at once in the drainage channels as a mad torrent. The 

 flocks and herds, grazing as free commoners, had eaten the forage, 

 destroyed the stable moisture, and left desert and desolation behind. 



The pioneers of all that widespread region could be called as wit 

 'nesses regarding the former and present physical conditions, and the 

 destruction of its sole potentiality of wealth. Let one witness utter 

 the testimony of all, whether they come from New Mexico, Arizona, 

 Wyoming, Nevada, or any other state or territory in that domain. 



Mr. Bayless, of Oracle, Arizona, in a letter to the Government ag- 

 rostologists, says that the rich grasses of San Pedro valley are gone, 

 and that the river channel is cut down from three to twenty feet. The 

 valley is a sandy waste from bluff to bluff. Cutting down the river 

 channel impairs or prevents its use for irrigation. These results are 

 due to the use, free and in common, of the land for grazing. The av- 

 erage rainfall still comes, but nature's mode of conservation has been 

 destroyed; and where, twelve years before, 40,000 cattle fed and fat- 

 tened, 3,000 famine smitten creatures now eke out an existence. Mr. 

 Bayless adds that very few of these cattle were sold or removed from 

 the range, most of them having been left until the pasture was de- 

 stroyed, when they perished by starvation. The same story can be 

 told of a vast majority of the four hundred million acres of grazing 

 lands in the West, which belong to the Federal Government. Cattle 

 have grazed below the point of sustenance for them, and sheep have 

 followed to eat what remained to the roots and tramp the surface into 

 dust. The agricultural settlers have their freeholds invaded by no- 

 madic'flocks and herds. Rival stockmen hold a portion of the range 

 with Winchesters. Homicides redden the struggle for survival, and a 

 great industry is dying of starvation. The whole region has less 

 water for irrigation; and yearly grows less inviting to the settler who 

 seeks a home supported by that means. Is it not possible to end the 

 struggle, to call back the forage, to stop the march of the desert, to 

 restore the equilibrium of nature? 



