THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



243 



THE PRIMER OF IRRIGATION. 



BY D. H. ANDERSON. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1903, BY D. H ANDERSON. 



Chapter III. 



SJ:X'I-AKID AND ARID LANDS THEIR ORIGIN AND PE- 

 CULIARITIES. 



From a general chemical point of view there is 

 very little difference between the soils elsewhere on 

 the surface of the globe, and those in the vast empire 

 in the United States west of the 100th meridian. The 

 soil possesses the identical organic elements already spe- 

 cified in the table given in the second chapter ; the same 

 organic substances abound ; the processes of plant life 

 are similar, and the same plant foods are essential 

 to the welfare of crops. Still, -there is a difference ap- 

 parent to every man who thrusts a spade into the 

 ground, plants a seed, and attempts to coax the soil 

 to produce a harvest. 



A bird's eye view of the entire region impresses 

 the observef with the appalling sense of a vast, barren 

 <le*ert, a few oases, here and there, where widely sepa- 

 rated streams and springs exist, but in the main it 

 is an illimitable ocean, a desolate plain, with occasional 

 straggling clumps of scant coarse grass, sage brush, 

 artemisia, chemisal. greasewood, scrub oak, cactus and 

 other sparse vegetation, kept alive by the scant snows 

 of winter followed by dreary, hot, rainless summers, or 

 by inadequate winter rains succeeded by a tropical dry 

 season. This is the general aspect of the semi-arid 

 lands. 



Beyond them, except in the North, there is no win- 

 ter, no seasons, nothing but a pitiless cloudless sky, 

 tropical heat, unmitigated by moisture, with an atmos- 

 phere so dry and desiccating that animal matter exposed 

 to its oxygen dries, or oxidizes and becomes reduced to 

 an odorless powder, the toughest substance soon pre- 

 senting the appearance of a moth-eaten garment. This 

 is the aspect of the arid lands. Some say there are 

 a hundred millions of acres of both kinds of land west 

 of the 100th degree of longitude, others claim a hundred 

 and fifty millions of acres, but the author suspects a 

 still greater measurement. 



Notwithstanding all these discouraging featiires, 

 there is no land in the world that possesses greater fer- 

 tility, greater capacity for plant growth, and that will 

 so amply and so richly repay the labor of him who 

 puts his hand to the plow and blinds his eyes to the 

 hideous scenic features, until he has created an oasis 

 of his own, in the midst of which he may sit in peace, 

 plenty and content, beneath his own vine and fig tree, 

 in a cooling breeze, sipping the pure cold water from 

 his own olla hanging in the shade, while over, beyond 

 him, sizzling in the hot sands of the so-called desert, 

 eggs may poach in the intense heat, and not even an 

 insect find energy enough to emit a single buzz. 



By and by, a neighbor comes, sees the oasis and 

 the near by sands, wonders if he can accomplish as 

 much, tries it, and is surprised to find how easily it 

 is done. Then comes another neighbor, and another, 

 and still more, who push the desert farther off, until 

 there is no desert as far as the eye can reach, nothing 

 visible but rich harvests, fat kine, and plenty. The 

 very atmosphere has changed; the rainfall is slightly 

 increased, where rain and moisture had been strangers 

 from a time far beyond the memory of man, the dews 

 of heaven begin to fall and restore to the parched soil 

 a portion of the moisture stolen from it by the greedy 



sun. It is a desert reclaimed, semi-arid and arid lands 

 wrenched from the grasp of ages of, barrenness and in 

 the struggle forced to perspire plenty, comfort, and 

 wealth. Is the picture overdrawn ? The reader has but 

 to look around to perceive the truth of it; it is a mov- 

 ing picture constantly before the eyes of him who turns 

 them in the right direction. 



There are men still living who remember when all 

 that vast domain was considered as a desert, and indi- 

 cated on the maps of long ago, as "The Great American 

 Desert," even the Government regarding it as a desert 

 not worth offering the public, or so poor and worthless 

 as not to be worthy of protecting against marauders. 



It has been said that from a general chemical 

 standpoint, there is no difference in the soil which 

 offers so mournful and dreary a prospect as our semi- 

 arid and arid lands, and that found anywhere else on 

 the globe. In their physical characteristics, however, a 

 vast difference is presented to the eye, but that differ- 

 ence is not to the disadvantage of the desert, for when 

 we come to investigate, even carelessly, we discover a 

 greater richness of inorganic and organic matter than 

 in any other region* on the earth. For ages the land 

 has been exposed to the lixiviating action of rain water, 

 in greater or less quantities for it must be taken as 

 true that at some period in the misty past all these 

 lands were exposed to the wash of rains without los- 

 ing their fertility. As year after year and age after 

 age rolled away, greater or less vegetation grew to ma- 

 turity, and, unharvested, returned back into the soil to 

 further enrich it, and hence it became richer and richer, 

 for it must be remembered, that the fertility of the 

 ground is not diminished by plants growing therein; 

 it is not until they are removed from the ground that 

 the soil gradually loses its fertility. Neither was there 

 any impairment by their utilization as pasture grounds 

 for countless herds of wild and domesticated animals, 

 for those, during ages of pasturage, returned to the 

 soil the elements most suitable for plant life. 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 



Inasmuch as this book is devoted to irrigation, it 

 will be understood in all cases, that the lands and soils 

 referred to in it belong to that class known as "arid," 

 or "semi-arid," or, as they are commonly called, "desert 

 lands," as contradistinguished from those soils which 

 produce crops through the instrumentality of rain. This 

 is often said to be raising crops by "natural means," but 

 it by no means follows that growing crops by irrigation 

 implies "unnatural" means, the latter method being 

 equally as natural as the former, the forces of nature 

 being equally at the command and disposal of the farmer. 

 Nature works along lines laid down by general laws, 

 and man makes a special application of them for his 

 own uses and purposes. He drains the land when the 

 rain fall is too abundant, and when it is insufficient, or 

 fails altogether, he irrigates it. He follows the laws 

 of nature in both cases, wthout altering, straining, or 

 violating them, indeed, he could not if he would. 



Comparing the entire vast area of arable desert 

 lands of the great West with the lands within the rain 

 belt, the soil relations between the various localities 

 are substantially the same. There are good and there 

 are bad lands, lands that are fertile and others that are 

 sterile; here we find soils which will grow luxuriant 

 crops, there we see soils that are not worth even an 

 experiment. 



To realize this properly the reader must divest 

 his mind of the idea of immensity that amazes, and 



