APPENDIX 



with a plough, and thus conducts the water where he wants it 

 through his own private system of distributers. The man- 

 agement of the waters, when the system has once been per- 

 fected, is so simple that a child can attend to it. Furnishing 

 arid lands with irrigation facilities is really a less formidable 

 task than supplying cities with water for domestic and fire 

 purposes. The one process is no more mysterious and un- 

 natural than the other. 



Although irrigation is both ancient and universal, the 

 Anglo-Saxon never dealt with it in a largo way until the last 

 half-century, when he found it to be the indispensable condi- 

 tion of settlement in large portions of western America, Aus- 

 tralia, and South Africa. Through all the centuries of the 

 past the art has been the exclusive possession of Indian, 

 Latin, and Mongolian races. Its earliest modern traces in 

 this country are found in the small gardens of the Mission 

 fathers of southern California. They brought the method 

 from Mexico and taught it to the Indians. But the real 

 cradle of American irrigation as a practical industry is 



Utah. Bancroft Library 



In the hands of the Indians and Mexicans of the South- 

 west irrigation was a stagnant art, but the white population 

 studied it with the same enthusiasm it bestowed upon elec- 

 tricity and new mining processes. The lower races merely 

 knew that if crops were expected to grow on dry land, they 

 must be artificially watered. They proceeded to pour on the 

 water by the rudest method. The Anglo-Saxon demanded to 

 know why crops required water, and how and when it could 

 best be supplied to meet their diverse needs. He has thus 

 approached by gradual steps true scientific methods, which 

 are producing results unknown before in any part of the 

 world. 



The earliest metho4 of irrigation is known as " flooding," 

 and is generally applied by means of shallow basins. A plot 

 of ground near the river or ditch from which water is to be 



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