40 
IRRIGATION. 
and sublime as their fir-fringed gorges, and a 
romance as varied as their changing hues in light 
and shade — and then ! 
The plains of Colorado now form one of the 
finest wheat-growing sections in the world, but 
for years after the State’s first settlement it can 
hardly be said to have had any agricultural 
resources. Its soil, except in the mountains, 
although wonderfully fertile when irrigated, is 
productive of nothing except buffalo-grass, cac- 
tus and a few varieties of other plants, without 
this artificial application of water. And this, 
while no very laborious task on the low lands 
bordering streams, requires long canals to render 
possible the irrigation of any considerable area of 
upland. Their construction has taken capital and 
labor, and has progressed extensively only within 
a few years. 
Its first settlers were attracted to it by its min- 
eral wealth only, and supposed its plains to belong, 
as the old geographies said they did, to the 
“ great American Desert,” over which, as the boys 
used to recite, “ roamed vast herds of deer, buffalo, 
Indians, and other wild horses! ” 
The mining population naturally centred in 
towns and mining camps, and was confined to 
the mountains and the few places near their base, 
which served as harbors for the emigrant and 
freight craft that came westward over the ocean 
