site logo

More Of Irrigation


I have thus far considered Irrigation with special reference to those

limited, yet very considerable districts, which are traversed or

bordered by living streams, and, having a level or slightly rolling

surface, present obvious facilities for and incitements to the

operation. Such are the valleys of the Platte, and of nearly or quite

all its affluents after they leave the Rocky Mountains; such is the

valley of the uppe
Arkansas; such the valleys of the Smoky Hill and the

Republican, so far down as Irrigation may be considered necessary.

Irrigation on all these seems to me inevitable, and certain to be

speedily, though capriciously, effected.



I believe a dam across either fork of the Platte, at any favorable

point above their junction, raising the surface of the stream six feet,

at a cost not exceeding $10,000, would suffice to irrigate completely

not less than fifty square miles of the valley below it, while serving

at the same time to furnish power for mills and factories to a very

considerable extent; for the need of Irrigation is not incessant, but

generally confined to two or three months per annum, and all of the

volume of the stream not needed for Irrigation could be utilized as

power. Thus the valleys of the few constant water-courses of the Plains

may come at an early day to employ and subsist a dense and energetic

population, engaged in the successful prosecution alike of agriculture

and manufactures, while belts, groves, and forests, of choice, luxuriant

timber, will diversify and embellish regions now bare of trees, and but

thinly covered with dead herbage from June until the following April.



But, when we rise above the bluffs, and look off across the blank, bleak

areas where no living water exists, the problem becomes more difficult,

and its solution will doubtless be much longer postponed. To a stranger,

these bleak uplands seem sterile; and, though such is not generally the

fact, the presumption will repel experiments which involve a large

initial outlay. The railroad companies, which now own large tracts of

these lands, will be obliged either to demonstrate their value, or to

incite individuals and colonists to do it by liberal concessions. As the

case stands to-day, most of these lands, which would have been dear at

five cents per acre before the roads were built, could not be sold at

any price to actual settlers, even with the railroad in plain sight,

because of the dearth of fuel and timber, and because also the means of

rendering them fruitful and their cultivation profitable are out of

reach of the ordinary pioneer. Hence, so long as the valleys of the

living streams proffer such obvious invitations to settlement and

tillage, by the aid of Irrigation, I judge that the higher and dryer

plains will mainly be left to the half-savage herdsmen who rear cattle

and sheep without feeding and sheltering them, by giving them the range

of a quarter-section to each bullock, and submitting to the loss of a

hundred head or so after each great and cold snow-storm, as an

unavoidable dispensation of Providence.



But in process of time even the wild herdsmen will be softened into or

replaced by regular farmers, plowing and seeding for vegetables and

small grains, sheltering their habitations with trees, and sending their

children to school. This change involves Irrigation; and the following

are among the ways in which it will be effected:



The Plains are nowhere absolutely flat (as I presume the "desert" of

Sahara is not), but diversified by slopes, and swells, and gentle ridges

or divides, affording abundant facilities for the distribution of water.

A well, sunk on the crest of one of these divides, will be filled with

living water at a depth ranging from 50 to 100 feet. A windmill of

modest dimensions placed over this well will be rarely stopped for want

of impelling power: Wind being, next to space, the thing most abundant

on the Plains. A reservoir or pond covering three or four acres may be

made adjacent to the well at a small cost of labor, by excavating

slightly and using the earth to form an embankment on the lower side.

The windmill, left alone, will fill the reservoir during the windy

Winter and Spring months with water soon warmed in the sun, and ready to

be drawn off as wanted throughout the thirsty season of vegetable growth

and maturity. Carefully saved, the product of one well will serve to

moisten and vivify a good many acres of grass or tillage.



Such is the retail plan applicable to the wants of solitary farmers; but

I hope to see it supplemented and invigorated by the extensive

introduction of Artesian wells, whereof two, by way of experiment, are

now in progress at Denver and Kit Carson respectively.



I need not here describe the Artesian well, farther than to say that it

is made by boring to a depth ranging from 700 to more than a 1000 feet,

tubing regularly from the top downward until a stream is reached which

will rise to and above the surface, flowing over the top of the tube in

a stream often as large as an average stove-pipe. Such a well, after

supplying a settlement or modest village with water, may be made to fill

a reservoir that will sufficiently irrigate a thousand cultivated acres.

Its water will usually be warmer than though obtained from near the

surface, and hence better adapted to Irrigation.



Of course, the Artesian well is costly, and will not soon be constructed

for uses purely agricultural; but the railroads traversing the Plains

and the Great Basin will sometimes be compelled to resort to one without

having use for a twentieth part of the water they thus entice from the

bowels of the earth; and that which they cannot use they will be glad to

sell for a moderate price, thus creating oases of verdure and bounteous

production. The palpable interest of railroads in dotting their long

lines of desolation with such cheering contrasts of field and meadow and

waving trees, render nowise doubtful their hearty cooperation with any

enterprising pioneer who shall bring the requisite capital, energy,

knowledge, and faith, to the prosecution of the work.



These are but hasty suggestions of methods which will doubtless be

multiplied, varied, and improved upon, in the light of future experience

and study. And when the very best and most effective methods of subduing

the Plains to the uses of civilized man shall have been discovered and

adopted, there will still remain vast areas as free commons for the

herdsmen and sporting-grounds for the hunter of the Elk and the

Antelope, after the Buffalo shall have utterly disappeared.



I do not doubt the assertion of the plainsmen that rain increases as

settlements are multiplied. Crossing the Plains in 1859, I noted

indications that timber had formerly abounded where none now grows; and

I presume that, as young trees are multiplied in the wake of

civilization, finally thickening into clumps of timber and beginning a

forest, more rain will fall, and the extension of woodlands become

comparatively easy. But, relatively to the country eastward of the

Missouri, the Plains will always be arid and thirsty, with a pure,

bracing atmosphere that will form a chief attraction to thousands

suffering from or threatened with pulmonary afflictions. A million of

square miles, whereon is found no single swamp or bog, and not one lake

that withstands the drouth of Summer, can never have a moist climate,

and never fail to realize the need of Irrigation.



The Plains will in time give lessons, which even the well-watered and

verdurous East may read with profit. Such level and thirsty clays as

largely border Lake Champlain, for example, traversed by streams from

mountain ranges on either hand, will not always be owned and cultivated

by men insensible to the profit of Irrigation. Nor will such rich

valleys as those of the Connecticut, the Kennebec, the Susquehanna, be

left to suffer year after year from drouth, while the water which should

refresh them runs idly and uselessly by. Agriculture repels innovation,

and loves the beaten track; but such lessons as New-England has received

in the great drouth of 1870 will not always be given and endured in

vain.



More

;