PREFACE 



and Territories of the arid region and to nearly every 

 valley or settlement of special interest. These oppor- 

 tunities were utilized to the fullest extent. The his- 

 tory of colonies has more often been learned from 

 the lips of pioneers than from books or documents. 

 The causes of successes and failures in settlement, 

 and the merits of various social and industrial plans 

 suggested in these pages as best adapted to future 

 colonization effort, have been discussed at many a 

 western fireside with the men and women who are 

 dealing practically with such problems. If this por- 

 tion of the book has any value, it consists in the fact 

 that on every possible occasion it has been discussed 

 with the earnest people who are themselves engaged 

 in making homes in western valleys. 



A list of those who have been helpful to the author 

 in assembling the facts used in these pages would in- 

 clude nearly all the men prominent in the irrigation 

 work of the western States. It is not unfair, how- 

 ever, to make especial mention of the author's obliga- 

 tions to Frederick H. Newell, of the United States 

 Geological Survey ; to Elwood Mead, State Engineer 

 of Wyoming ; to A. Milton Musser, historian of the 

 Mormon Church, and to David Boyd, historian of 

 the Greeley Colony, Colorado. 



Of the books which have been most useful in fur- 

 nishing light for the larger aspects of the subject, Mr. 

 Douglas Campbell's The Puritan in England, Hol- 

 land, and America, Mr. Theodore Koosevelt's The 

 Winning of the West, Mr. Andrew Carnegie's Tri- 



