THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY 



The influence of the new environment may readily be 

 illustrated by comparing the conditions which confronted 

 the early settlers of the New England forests and the Illi- 

 nois prairie, on one hand, and, upon the other, those 

 which the settler met in the deserts around Salt Lake. 

 Except for the temporary need of defence against the 

 Indians, eastern settlers were able to locate their homes 

 without reference to neighbors. They cleared the forest 

 or turned the prairie sod, and were ready to begin. 

 They generally took all the land they could claim under 

 the law, and held much of it out of use for speculation. 

 The greed for land resulted in large farms, and this in- 

 volved social isolation. The individual acted alone and 

 exclusively for his own benefit. The conditions not only 

 favored, but practically compelled it. Out of this primal 

 germ of our eastern citizenship grew the plant of indi- 

 vidual enterprise, which is the conspicuous product of 

 the time. The fruit which it bore was competition, and 

 this has latterly tended towards monopoly. 



The conditions which confronted the settler in the 

 deserts of Utah were widely different. There he could 

 not build his home and make his living regardless of his 

 neighbor. Without water to irrigate the rich but arid 

 soil he could not raise a spear of grass nor an ear of 

 corn. Water for irrigation could only be obtained by 

 turning the course of a stream and building canals which 

 must sometimes be cut into the solid walls of the canyon 

 or conducted across chasms in flumes. All this lay be- 

 yond the reach of the individual. Thus it was found 

 that the association and organization of men were the 

 price of life and prosperity in the arid West. The alter- 

 native was starvation. The plant which grew from this 



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