THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



misfortune of private irrigation works mostly to the fact 

 that this feature of their institutions was established when 

 none of their people possessed sufficient private capital to 

 engage in costly enterprises. They started upon a basis 

 of equality, for they were equally poor. They could buy 

 water rights only with their labor. This labor they ap- 

 plied in co-operation, and canal stock was issued to each 

 man in proportion to the amount of work he had con- 

 tributed to its construction. This in turn was deter- 

 mined by the amount of land he owned, the owner of 

 twenty acres doing just twice as much work as the owner 

 of ten. Here we see the influence of aridity not only 

 favoring, but compelling, the adoption of the principle 

 of associative enterprise, as mentioned in a previous 

 chapter. But before discussing the wider results of this 

 influence in the life of Utah, it is important to observe 

 the characteristic forms of agriculture which grew out 

 of these new conditions. 



We have seen that Brigham Young had made twenty 

 acres the maximum size of farms in the Salt Lake settle- 

 ment. He now proceeded to lay down a philosophy very* 

 different from that which prevailed on the large farms 

 of the wheat and corn country whence he had come. Ho 

 urged that each family should realize the nearest possi- 

 ble approach to absolute industrial independence within 

 the boundaries of its own small farm. His sermons in 

 the tabernacle dealt less in theology than in worldly com- 

 mon-sense. The result is an agricultural system peculiar 

 to Utah. 



Just as we have the cotton-belt in Texas, the corn-belt 

 in Nebraska, the wheat-belt in Dakota, and the orange- 

 district in California, so in Utah we have the land of the 



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