62 



DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



As- the area devoted to dry farming increases, the use of water out- 

 side the regular irrigation season is destined, I believe, to increase in a 

 much greater ratio. To make this use possible we ought to begin soon to 

 define by legislative enactments all kinds of rights to the use of water. 

 One man desires water only during the crop-growing season, which in 

 Utah, for example, may be assumed to be five months; another desires 

 to divert a part of the flood flow for storage purposes, while a third wishes 

 to use water for winter irrigation at favorable tirnes in the seven months 

 when it is not otherwise needed. Now, it would seem to be the duty of 

 the state to issue permits for all of these appropriations, but to so define 

 the rights of each that conflicts may be avoided. 



Small Storage Reservoirs. 



The storing of water from springs, creeks and s*- cams furnishes an- 

 other means of providing limited water supplies for dry farms. During 

 the past few years a large number of reservoirs have been built in Colo- 

 rado. According to the State Engineer, sufficient water was stored in reser- 

 voirs in 1906 in Division No. 1, to cover more than a third of a million 

 acres 12 inches deep. The chief purpose of this stored water is to sup- 

 plement the flow in canals that are short during the last half of the irriga- 

 tion season. If the Colorado irrigator considers it a paying investment to 

 store water to increase his supply the dry farmer who eats canned vegeta- 

 bles the year through, because he lacks water to grow them, should not 

 hesitate to do likewise. It seems to me that for every reason that might be 

 advanced in support of reservoirs for water users under a canal, two might 

 be given in favor-of the dry farmer above the canal. The excuse so often 

 made by the farmer that neither water nor good sites can be had is seldom 

 true. This may be true in certain localities, but it is not generally true. 



I remember when I was building the Ogden water works and the 

 president, President Armstrong, came up, and he saw that I had a pipe- 

 line laid down the canyon, and then we ran up 275 feet, or thereabouts, to 

 the hill opposite, to get it over on the Ogden bench", and he said, "Fortier, 

 you will never do it." He seemed to be sorry that an engineer even with 

 the small reputation that I had should make such a blunder. But the 

 water has been coming up over that hill for something like sixteen years. 



Now, I want to show you by that that in building reservoirs you don't 

 need to build your dam in the canyon or in the creek. It is not necessarily 

 so, but it is best if you tap the stream high enough to syphon the water 

 down and up over into your dry land farming. Then it is often possible 

 to get a much better site, by going out away from the stream altogether; 

 it may be several miles from the stream. Of course this will take more 

 money than one dry farmer can well afford, but you dry farmers must 

 co-operate just as the irrigators of Utah have done. 



The irrigators of Utah set the pace for all of the rest of th^'s arid 

 country in co-operation, and I believe it is possible for the arid farmer to 

 join hands and construct storage reservoirs and the like, build canals for 

 winter irrigation and all of that sort of thing. 



