THE IERIQATION AGE. 



155 



Notes on Practical 

 Irrigation 



D. M. Anderson 



Semi-Arid and Arid Lands Their Origin and 

 Peculiarities. 



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 specified in the 

 table given in the second chapter; the same organic sub- 

 stances 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 apparent 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 ob- 

 server with the appalling sense of a vast, barren desert, 

 a few oases, here and there, where widely separated 

 streams and springs exist, but in the main it is an illimit- 

 able ocean, a desolate plain, with occasional straggling 

 clumps of scant coarse grass, sage brush, artemisia, chem- 

 isal, greasewood, scrub oak, cactus and other sparse vege- 

 tation, 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 winter, 

 no seasons, nothing but a pitiless cloudless sky, tropical 

 heat, unmitigated by moisture, with an atmosphere 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 presenting the ap- 

 pearance 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 features, there 

 is no land in the world that possesses greater fertility, 

 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 in- 

 tense heat, and not even an insect finds energy enough to 

 emit a single buzz. 



Reclaim the Desert. 



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 har- 

 vests, 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 re- 

 store 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 moving 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 indicated 

 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 stand- 

 point, 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 pre- 

 sented to the eye, but that difference is not to the dis- 

 advantage 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 losing their fertility. As year after year and age 

 after age rolled away, greater or less vegetation grew to 

 maturity, 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 im- 

 pairment by their utilization as pasture grounds for count- 

 less 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 article 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, without 

 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 sub- 

 stantially 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 often 

 disheartens him; this idea eliminated, the only thought 

 that should dominate his mind, if he contemplates practical 

 success, is, how to abolish the actual differences and arrive 

 at practical uniformity in agricultural results. He thinks 

 of the pioneers who went into the forests with their axes 

 and laboriously felled trees and extracted stumps with 

 infinite labor, to prepare a clearing, in the soil of which 

 he might plant his sparse crops, and wait years before 

 establishing any sort of home. Perhaps he remembers 

 how a bog or marsh had to be drained, and the years it 

 required to "sweeten" the soil before it could be utilized. 

 He does not fully realize that in the desert his land is 

 ready for his muscles, for his seed, and for his crop; he 

 does not dream that he does not have to grow old before 

 carving out a comfortable home as he had to do in the 

 old days, back in what he is pleased to call "God's coun- 

 try," and that out in the desert he may have a home and 

 plenty while still young enough to enjoy them. 



The climate differences are too much in favor of the 

 desert to desire alteration, but the diametrically opposite 

 methods of controlling the soil are difficult to be appreci- 

 ated, though they are never baffling. They are no greater 

 than elsewhere, but they are opposed by preconceived 

 opinions, perhaps, rooted prejudices, and are, therefore, ap- 

 parently more serious. There are illimitable treeless regions, 

 covered or patched with stunted vegetation, that receive little 



