THE PLEASANT LAND OF UTAH 



modern enterprise. The costly works necessary to their 

 reclamation will doubtless come as the pressure of settle- 

 ment increases. 



Utah's pre-eminence in the land of irrigation is due to 

 historical considerations rather than to the excellence of 

 its canal systems or to the superiority of its laws and 

 customs. In the latter respect it is distinctly disappoint- 

 ing. The pioneers turned the water from the most con- 

 venient streams by the crudest devices, and with no 

 thought for any grand and enduring scheme of engineer- 

 ing. Canals were often duplicated many times over in a 

 single valley, wasting precious water, injuring the soil, 

 and unnecessarily restricting the area of settlement. The 

 evils of the irrigation system hastily constructed by the 

 pioneers are now seen and felt ; yet the early appropri- 

 ators of the mountain streams are so tenacious of what 

 they consider their rights as to render the reform of the 

 laws, the reconstruction of canals, and the readjustment 

 of irrigation customs to meet the conditions imposed by 

 the pressure of population, extremely difficult. Efforts 

 to establish a plan of State supervision which would pro- 

 vide for the measuring of water and its just apportion- 

 ment among irrigators a system which is the first and 

 last essential of peace and progress in an arid land have 

 been repeatedly frustrated by the unreasoning jealousy 

 of the older settlers. This has occurred in spite of the 

 fact that the best local authority asserts that at least 

 seventy per cent, of the water supply is wasted under 

 present methods. 



For fully forty years Utah irrigation was held in the 

 hands of small local companies composed exclusively of 

 the land-owners. Works were built by the common labor 



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