CHAPTER I 



THE MORMON" COMMONWEALTH 



To study the human side of things in the arid region 

 of the Far AVest, we must begin with the Mormon Com- 

 monwealth of Utah. This is true for a number of excel- 

 lent reasons. We find here the earliest development of 

 any consequence. Although irrigation is older than his- 

 tory, it was never practised upon any considerable scale 

 by Anglo-Saxons until the Mormon pioneers turned the 

 waters of City Creek upon the alkaline soil of Salt Lake 

 Valley in the summer of 1847. 



In Utah, almost alone of the far-western States, settle- 

 ment began with home-making pure and simple. Irriga- 

 tion was the primal and single industry until a common- 

 wealth had been established. In California, in Colorado, 

 in Nevada, in Idaho, and in Montana, mining, rather 

 than agriculture, was the motive which induced the or- 

 iginal settlement by Americans, and irrigation grew up 

 only as an adjunct to the mining camp. In Wyoming, 

 and in a less degree elsewhere, stock-raising was the first 

 pursuit and irrigation was used merely to flood the bot- 

 tom land and grow crops of coarse, wild hay for the win- 

 ter feeding of cattle. In Washington and Oregon the 

 first settlements were made along the humid coast re- 

 gion, and the arid parts of those States were settled, in 



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