78 IRRIGATION AND THE FLORA OF THE PLAINS. 
which lie nearest the foothills, where the landscape is considera 
bly varied by elevations and depressions, there are now many 
larger lakes covering five or ten acres and. quite deep, which were 
nothing more than dry hollows six or eight years ago. The num- 
ber and variety of aquatic plants in these lakes are increasing 
every year, and on the shores of some the cotton woods and wik 
lows that have sprung up from seed are becoming quite conspic- 
uous. In the section of which I speak, there are no natural lakes 
or ponds, but in those which have been the incidental result of t 
irrigation of the lands around them, the water-fowl, the amphibi- 
ous reptiles, and strictly aquatic plants have all found for them 
selves homes in what was but a dry waste, a few years since. 
Some of the very oldest lines of ditches are now noticeabl 
great distances by the native willows, which have sprung 
seed and attained their full size, all along their banks. Othe 
the willows and cotton woods grow only in the mountains or by 
rivers whose valleys lie eonsiderably below the level of the pl 
Among the plants of the plains are a large class of annuals: 
seeds of which seem invariably to germinate in autumn, and f 
plants, to attain half their growth during the fall and early 
ter, so that they flower in April and May. ‘These are for t 
most part gone out of flower before the first of June, in all ti 
uncultivated portions of the country; and during all the bu 
months of summer the seeds lie waiting for the rains of early 
tumn to start them into life. But not so upon the culti 
lands. Here, wherever moisture is given, there is a regular 
cession of these plants in bloom, through the whole su 
fall ; and by the ditches at the side of our village streets, | 
anist may in October gather excellent specimens of plants, W 
before the settlement of the country, he would have found 
where after May. The same may be said of many peren 
which, in the vicinity of the water, continue to send forth | 
stems and flowers, long after their season is past in other 
