THE REVOLUTION ON THE PLAINS 



some cases actually trained to respond to the ringing 

 of the dinner-bell, coming in scurrying shoals to fight 

 for crumbs of bread thrown upon the water. (This fish 

 story is a true one.) The reservoirs also yield a profit- 

 able crop of ice in the winter. When we compare the 

 hardships and bitterness of this locality but a few years 

 since with the comfort and abundance which the infin- 

 itely smaller farms yield to-day, we behold anew the civ- 

 ilizing power of irrigation. The Starvation Belt has be- 

 come a Land of Plenty. 



The centre and inspiration of these developments is 

 Garden City, capital of Finney county. What Greeley 

 was to Colorado and Riverside to southern California, 

 this little town has been to western Kansas. Perhaps 

 no other small place on the plains suffered a more vio- 

 lent attack of "boom" than Garden City in the feverish 

 times of the last decade. Certainly none has held with 

 more tenacity to its confidence in the final outcome of 

 the country or contributed more to the early vindica- 

 tion of its faith. 



It is difficult to estimate the reasonable possibilities 

 of windmill irrigation in Kansas. There are enthusiasts 

 who insist that the industry will be extended to nearly 

 every acre, uplands as well as valleys. There are pessi- 

 mists who assert that the amount of land reclaimable by 

 such means is relatively very small. Of this subject the 

 conservative hydrographer of the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey, Mr. Frederick Haynes Newell, speaks as 

 follows : 



"The existence of the subsurface waters of the river 

 valleys of western Kansas has long been known. Like 

 every other natural resource, its importance, at one time 

 H 113 



