1897.] ESSAYS. 13 



put under successful cultivation, by means of Artesian well irrigation. 

 There are now over 13,000 wells in full operation, ranging in 

 depth from 75 to 400 feet ; the water flowing from them is collected 

 in reservoirs, from which it is conducted by mains and laterals over 

 the land. It is estimated that 12,000,000 acres have already been 

 reclaimed, and this area is under cultivation. As a result, Algiers 

 has become a great wine-producing country, about 120,000 acres of 

 the old desert being ijiauted to the vine ; growing immense crops of 

 grapes by means of irrigation, thus literally turning water into wine, 

 without a miracle. 



IRRIGATION IN AMERICA IN EARLY TIMES. 



Irrigation was practised on this continent as long ago as when Cor- 

 tez made his raid on Mexico, where he found the Pueblo Indians and 

 other tribes raising immense crops of Indian corn by means of their 

 crude methods of irrigation. In California the early Franciscan monks 

 carried on the practice exteusively, from the first establishment of 

 their missions. These early methods were crude, imperfect and waste- 

 ful ; enterprise and science are applying new methods in such a man- 

 ner as to utilize to the utmost the abundant means of fertilization 

 which nature has made available. And it is in our own country that 

 the full benefit of irrigation, as the handmaid of Agriculture and Hor- 

 ticulture, is to be demonstrated. 



The Geological Surveys, conducted by Major Powell, report the 

 "Arid region of the United States to contain 1,340,000 square miles, 

 equivalent to 857,600,000 acres ; but that does not include all the area 

 where irrigation is or should be used, and where it must be practised 

 in the near future." 



This vast area includes a region where, except little places on the 

 mountains, agriculture is practically impossible, year by year, without 

 an artificial supply of water. If we include all the area where agri- 

 culture is dependent in whole or in part on irrigation, one-half the 

 land in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, would be embraced 

 thereiu. Of the above area it is estimated that about 500,000,000 

 acres can be reclaimed by irrigation. 



Mr. Bronson, testifying before a committee of Congress, makes the 

 statement that in Texas alone 1,500,000 acres can be reclaimed by the 

 judicious use of water. The Geological Report for 1890-91 states that 

 there were designated for reservoir sites up to date of the report, some 

 one hundred and fifty locations ; of these, 32 were in California, 4G 

 in Colorado, 28 in Montana, 37 in New Mexico, and 2 in Nevada. 



