368 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



FROM DESERT TO FARM. 



Changes Wrought In 



Arid Waste By Irrigation Veritable 

 Miracle. 



Were all of arid America fit for the living -it could 

 be occupied by a third of the entire population of the 



^^" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 



Concrete Outlet from Main Canal of Billings Land and Irrigation Co.': 

 Ctnal which forms Lateral shown in another view 



Tinted States. Go into the foothills of Colorado and 

 Nevada. There the sagebrush .springs fiom the sand 

 .as it does on the sun-baked mesas of Arizona and New 

 Mexico, away to the south. The statistician estimates 

 that even in Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas fully 

 75,000,000 acres will produce only a scanty herbage 

 just enough to keep range cattle alive a few we; ks 

 during the grazing season yet these states are not con- 

 sidered a part of the desert. 



Already a modern miracle has been wrought. The 

 'one who has not visited the oasis created by irrigation 

 may scout this assertion, but should he chance into the 

 valley through which the Rio Pecos flows, or in Colo- 

 rado along the Poudre River, the landscape of field, 

 orchard and garden which nature has created in a literal 

 wilderness will convince him beyond the shadow of a 

 doubt. In the southwest fruits and grains, both of 

 the tropic and temperate zones, are to be seen growing 

 in luxuriance where yesterday only greasewood, sage- 

 bruth and cactus existed. 



Yet the soil is unchanged, save for the application 

 of water. It is that of the desert without moisture, 

 almost incapable of supporting life. When moistened, 

 however, these particles of sand, even alkali rock, con- 

 tain properties so fertile that from them springs' vegeta- 

 tion more abundant and luxuriant than the crops that 

 are gathered from the rich black loam of Indiana and 

 'Illinois and the fertile valleys of New York itself. 



Though less than 10 per cent of the available area 

 for irrigation has thus far been reached, in Colorado 

 itself no less than 75 per cent of the lands available 

 for cultivation depends upon the artificial water supply. 

 These farms aggregate 750,000 acres. The South Platte 

 valley, the most extensively irrigated region in the 

 United States, including portions of Colorado, Wyoming 

 and Nebraska, has 2.000,000 acres which are artificially 

 watered. Farms in Utah thus supplied aggregate 300,- 

 000 acres, Arizona contains 100,000 acres. New Mexico 

 150.000 acres, Nebraska 100,000, while some of the 



most productive valleys of- California, which send their 

 fruit and vegetables by the carload to all parts of the 

 Tinted States, as well as the principal cities of Europe, 

 i! ic nurtured entirely by wells and canals. Yet the aver- 

 age size of an irrigated farm is not over forty acres, 

 \\-hich gives an idea of the millions of people who today 

 depend upon these great waterworks for their livelihood. 



THE IRRIGATION PLANT AT CONRAD, MONT. 



A Montana exchange says the great irrigation 

 |)l-iiit installed in Teton county throuuh the broad- 

 minded and far-sighted business enterprise of Hon. \V. 

 G. Conrad, of Great Falls : This enterprise is the largest 

 in the statr up to date and nearly equals some of the 

 government's proposed iirigation schemes. It is assured 

 that Mr. Conrad is even now busy with plans that will 

 result in this great tract of land, which he has redeemed 

 from an arid .desert and made available for farms and 

 homes, being cut up into individual tracts and settled 

 with thrifty farmers who will own their own homes 

 and leiome producing and prosperous citizens of the 

 state. Only by such transformation is it possible for 

 him to realize profit or interest on his investment, and 

 he has steadily kept this object in view through no 

 little misrepresentation and envious comment by those 



One of Laterals from Canal of Billings Land and Irrigation Co. East of 

 Billing?. 



\vho, unable to accomplish such beneficent results them- 

 selves, would yet put any obstructions possible in the 

 way of others who could and would bring the project to 

 a successful issue. It is not too much to expect that 

 in a very short time a thousand families will find 

 profitable work and a prosperous living on land which 

 only a few years ago furnished nourishment only for 

 a few bands of sheep, work for a score of herders and 

 profit for their half dozen owners. 



One has but to look at the land above this ditch, 

 brown and bare, and not worth a dollar an acre, and 

 compare it with the smiling fertility of the land be- 

 low, which has had irrigation, to realize what a great 

 increase in the wealth of Teton county and its agri- 

 cultural resources has been wrought by these ditches. 

 The man who makes a million or two of dollars in 

 Wall street but transfers wealth from others to his own 

 coffers, but the man who digs mineral wealth from the 

 soil and puts it into circulation or the man who multi- 



