THE IKRIGATION AGE. 



215 



state and federal laws recognize prior claims, but owing 

 to social forces at work throughout the West, these 

 priorities have been finally limited by saying that a 

 land owner's claim to water is limited to a "beneficial 

 use" of the water. The State of Wyoming deserves the 

 credit for the first enunciation and practice of this prin- 

 ciple of justice. Hence Wyoming has been justly called 

 the "Law Giver of the Arid West.'' In whatever way 

 irrigation plants are to be built and managed, the 

 nature of the circumstances forces cooperation in any 

 given valley. This cooperative force among the Mor- 

 mons in the early settlements about Salt Lake assured 

 them success not only in irrigation, but in coopera- 

 tive banking, which stood the test of the great financial 

 panics which have swept over this country within the 

 last forty years, better than our own private, state, or 

 quite as well as the national bank. The Mormons suc- 

 ceeded also in cooperative boot and shoe manufacture 

 and cooperative grocery store keeping. Doubtless the 

 peculiar social force brought to play in the Mormon 

 religion, in the persecution that followed, and in the 

 admittedly great leadership of men possessed by Brig- 

 ham Young, will account largely for the success of 

 these various cooperative enterprises. Cooperation in 

 all lines of production can not, however, be recom- 

 mended in any and all communities, except as the in- 

 dividuals of the cooperative company shall learn sub- 

 mission and become adepts in the particular business 

 under cooperation. But in irrigation the necessity of 

 the social force is such that there is no escape. Hence, 

 the foresight and the wisdom of the Almighty in plac- 

 ing his children upon portions of the earth where they 

 must associate in effort to reap the rewards He has in 

 store for them, in the proper combining of elements 

 of air, water, soil, and sunlight. Thus our arid West 

 has for this whole country a standing example, or 

 illustration, of how to make as many people as possible 

 share in the benefits of ownership in the land and of 

 the right to enjoy the fruits of their own toil, not only 

 in irrigation, but in other enterprises of production. 



Again, what is in the future for our arid West? 

 Irrigation includes all means used to put water on 

 the land when and where needed, and to take excess 

 of water from shallows, swamps, and bogs to make 

 the land available for cultivation. Irrigation in any 

 country is first done by diverting the water by ditches- 

 directly from the stream. Travelers in Egypt years 

 ago gave us the impression that the Nile afforded 

 abundant water for all irrigating purposes in Egypt; 

 but this is not so. Until within recent years most irri- 

 gation in Egypt was only annual irrigation and by 

 diversion ditches. Now the English government is 

 building great reservoirs and canals by which irriga- 

 tion becomes perennial and the crops are doubled, or 

 trebled. Within the last fifteen years the population 

 of Egypt has increased 43 per cent, enabling the Khe- 

 dive to support not only his increasing population, but 

 to pay the enormous tributes to the sultan of Turkey 

 and to England. Instead of elevating the water upon 

 high lands by- means of sweeps and buckets as the 

 Egyptians do we are lifting it_by means of windmills, 

 gasoline, or steam engines, either from the rivers, or 

 deep wells as in western Kansas, Colorado and the 

 Dakotas. Thus will water be lifted from the deep can- 

 yons of the Colorado River and sent coursing over the 

 parched plateaus of Arizona and California. So long 

 has oppression, wars, and slavery, overrun Egypt, her 



native population has no inventive genius to apply 

 improved tools and machinery. Our people, quick to 

 adapt themselves to new circumstances, with our Gov- 

 ernment making every endeavor to encourage home- 

 steads, ownership of small land holdings, and keep in 

 check the speculative land grabbers, we may expect not 

 only one valley equal to the Nile but five or six valleys 

 in our arid West, each of which may be made as val- 

 uable. The general Government is already committed 

 to the proposition of damming the streams, so that the 

 storm waters may be utilized upon the arid plains. 

 What a pity it was to see so much water go to waste 

 as did about Kansas City May 31, 1903. When the 

 flood waters of the Arkansas River are stored Kansas 

 and Colorado may dismiss their suit over water rights. 

 The Government has discovered that there is not water 

 enough both in natural and flood flows together to 

 irrigate all the lands irrigable, or that lies in a position 

 to be irrigated. But with 10 per cent of all our arid 

 West irrigated and capable of two to five crops a year, 

 and the unirrigated but tilable lands planted in such 

 crops as can be found adapted to dry culture and 

 grazed by stock, together with the great forests and 

 mining interests, and altogether the most healthful 

 climate on the globe, what may we not expect ? No one 

 dares predict; for the imagination of one situated as 

 we are can not conceive the wealth, health, and happi- 

 ness that nature has in store for our future generations. 



The human race has for many ages revered the 

 memory of a Prometheus who discovered the use and 

 control of fire. But today, in view of past history and 

 of what is promised us, we need to extoll another Prom- 

 etheus who has discovered the control of too much water 

 by drainage, or the right use of too little water by irri- 

 gation. 



Irrigation encourages the inhabitants to group their 

 dwellings into villages. The village life ena-bles the 

 people to avoid the lonely and isolated condition of 

 the large farms in the humid regions, or ranches of 

 the plain, where libraries,' schools, churches, and other 

 amenities so necessary to human society are very diffi- 

 cult, or well nigh impossible. The villages in the same 

 valley will not be so far from each other that they can 

 not be connected by trolley car to transport passengers 

 and products. Thus many other conveniences and 

 comforts of the city will be brought to the very doors 

 of the farmers themselves. 



IRRIGATION BY PUMPING. 



Joseph Jacobs, of the United States Reclamation 

 Service, has made some interesting and instructive 

 observations relative to irrigation by the pumping 

 method. He asserts that irrigation by pumping is in 

 no sense a new method, although it has been taken up 

 seriously only within the last few years. 



In the popular mind irrigation implies a gravity 

 or surface system for delivering water to the land, but 

 in recent years pumping has come more and more to 

 be recognized by engineers as a legitimate and profitable 

 means of supplying water for irrigation, and it is des- 

 tined to grow in importance with the development of 

 cheaper power. Lands that lie beyond the economic 

 scope of gravity supplies are often entirely reclaimable 

 by pumping, and numerous cases are on record where 

 both systems being available, the advantage as to first 

 cost and to operating expense has been with the pump- 

 ing plant. 



