FARMING UNDER IRRIGATION 59 



value because of its arid or semi-arid condition. This land 

 is reclaimed by some system of irrigation making it possi- 

 ble for the farmer to supply water in sufficient quantities 

 and at the proper time. The United States government, 

 through its reclamation service, has reclaimed millions of 

 acres of land in the West which formerly were a bleak des- 

 ert, or at best covered with sage-brush, mesquit and cacti, 

 and populated largely by prairie dogs and rattlesnakes. In 

 this region are now beautiful and thriving orchards, 

 grain and alfalfa fields, and a great variety of truck crops. 

 Some of the most beautiful farming sections of the West 

 can be found on these reclaimed lands and on what is 

 known as territory under irrigation. Millions of dollars 

 are being spent annually, not only by the federal govern- 

 ment, but also by the states and by private reclamation 

 companies to reclaim this land. 



Practise of irrigation not new. While irrigation has 

 only recently been developed into an important agricul- 

 tural science and received the attention of statesmen and 

 men of affairs, it is by no means a modern invention. It 

 was very commonly practised in Egypt, India, Spain, Mex- 

 ico and Peru thousands of years ago. When the Span- 

 iards first came to America they found irrigation fairly 

 well developed in both Mexico and Peru. The Indians 

 were the first to irrigate land in the United States. Even 

 at the present time can be found a number of Indian tribes 

 practising the same arts of irrigation followed by their fore- 

 fathers hundreds of years ago. In many of the western 

 arid plains from which the Indians have long since been 

 driven there are still remaining signs of their irrigation 

 systems. The first white people in America to develop and 

 organize definite systems of irrigation were the Mormons, 

 who located in the Salt River Valley of Utah. 



