THE HISTORY OF IRRIGATION 461 



system of ditches become more successful as the coope- 

 rative spirit grows. Other colonies were soon founded 

 near and in imitation of the Union Colony, as, for instance, 

 the Chicago Colony at Longmont, the Fountain Colony 

 at Colorado Springs, the Agricultural Colony at Fort 

 Collins, and the Southwestern Colony at Green City. 

 The work of these colonies helped to place on a sounder 

 basis the practice of irrigation in the United States, and 

 made of northeastern Colorado one of the most famous 

 agricultural districts of the country. 



The Union Colony, with its outgrowths, is entitled to 

 the credit of being associated with the first serious at- 

 tempts to measure and distribute water accurately for 

 irrigation. In this part of Colorado, also, were suggested 

 and initiated many of the systematic investigations of the 

 conditions determining successful irrigation. Many famous 

 names are connected with the struggles of the Colorado 

 irrigation pioneers, originating with the Union Colony of 

 1870. The Colorado experiments confirmed the Utah 

 experience. 



265. The United States Reclamation Service. During 

 the first fifty years of irrigation in the United States, the 

 Federal government gave little direct assistance to the 

 reclamation of arid lands beyond the enactment of laws 

 that made the public domain readily available to the 

 settler. As the public lands under large rainfall passed 

 into private ownership, and the demand for homesteads 

 continued, Congress gave consideration to federal aid to 

 irrigation, and on June 17, 1902, nearly fifty-five years 

 after the founding of modern American irrigation, passed 

 the justly famous reclamation act. 



This act provides that all moneys received from the 

 sale and disposal of public lands in all the states west of 



