24 - FORESTRY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
the most part is a rich loam, possessing the constituent parts of rich 
tillable soil. . » 
The country is not entirely destitute of water, by any means; it is 
traversed by the Canadian, the Arkansas, the upper waters of the — 
Kansas, the North and South Platte, the Rio Grande, the Nebraska, 
the Cheyenne, and many such streams as the Cache la Poudre. These 
streams are alikein their character; each hasa wide shallow bed, shifting | 
channels, swift currents, and a fall of from seven to ten feet to the mile. 
The banks are very low and the valleys wide, and with a descent tothe — 
eastward corresponding to the fall of the streams. a 
With water, and a fertile soil which only needs water, why should 
not the two be brought together? This is, briefly, what may be termed 
the “irrigation question.” 
To consider the difficulties, first, it is said that the streams mentioned 
cannot be depended on to furnish the requisite amount of water at the 
season when it is needed. ‘To this objection it is answered that there 
is every natural facility for the construction of immense reservoirs for the 
storage of water during the winter and the portion of the year when 
there is a surplus; and, further, that the great plateau is traversed by 
subterranean streams which may be reached by digging. The surface 
streams, which seem to dry up at some seasons, merely sink into the 
sand, and the fact is called to mind that in 1859~60, the driest season 
ever known within the memory of man, when in the country west of 
the Missouri no rain fell during a ‘period of nearly twelve months, 
water was found by digging in the beds of these streams. — 
The best and safest rule in endeavoring to ascertain whethera thing ean 
be done is to secure an answer to the question, *‘ Has it been done?” Ap- 
plying this rule to the irrigation question it will be found that irriga- 
tion has been successfully carried on along the banks of the Rio Grande 
for the three hundred years that the country has been known to white 
men, and for indefinite centuries before the Spaniards landed in North 
America. The irrigating ditches in the valley of the Pecos may have 
been dug when the pyramids were young. | 
The results of irrigation carried on by an imperfectly civilized and 
unprogressive people, with the rudest implements, may be seen from the 
point where the Rio Grande leaves the mountains, tor hundreds of miles ; 
and amid a land which elsewhere seems cursed with eternal sterility, 
winds the green belt of trees and orchards, of fields and vineyards 
watered by the Rio Grande or its tributaries, from the garden of the 
archbishop of Santa Fé to the mass of verdure which enfolds the old 
New Mexican town of Las Cruces. 
This is the work of a people with no scientific knowledge of hydraulic 
engineering, carried on with hoes and plows such as were in use in the 
days of Abraham. Can no more be done by Americans than by New 
Mexicans and Indians? Are the resources of modern agriculture infe- 
rior to the unchanged inventions of a Pueblo Indian? Must we aban- 
