BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 o 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF )RRJGAT|OM lH THE UA/lTED 
 
HT 
 
 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION IN THE UNITED 
 -^ STATES. 
 
 By ELWOOD ^\JEAD, 
 Expert in Charge of Irrigation Investigations, Office of Experiment Stations. 
 
 REMAINS OF ANCIENT IRRIGATION WORKS. 
 
 The earliest pathway of civilization on the American continent led 
 along the banks of the streams. In various parts of the Southwest, 
 notably in the Salt River Valley of Arizona, in northern New Mexico, 
 and along the southern borders of Colorado and Utah are well-defined 
 remains of irrigation works which have outlived by many centuries 
 the civilization to which they belonged. In at least one instance the 
 bank of an ancient canal has been utilized as a part of modern works. 
 
 Riding up the valley of the Rio Grande, in the first half of the six- 
 teenth century, Spanish explorers found, in the midst of arid sur- 
 roundings beds of beautiful roses, "not unlike those in the gardens 
 of Castile," as they noted in their diaries. They also found Pueblo 
 Indians irrigating the thirsty soil, as their forefathers had done for 
 centuries before them and as their descendants are still doing to-day. 
 In this valley and along the tributary streams, and at other places in 
 the desert wastes of the Southwest, Spanish settlements sprung up 
 and maintained themselves by means of these life-giving waters. The 
 ditches at Lascruces, N. Mex., have an unbroken record of three 
 hundred years of service, the history of which is written in the banks 
 of the canals and in the fields irrigated. This is due to the sediment 
 with which the waters of the Rio Grande are laden. Year after year this 
 has slowly added layer on layer to the sides and bottoms of these ditches, 
 until from being channels cut below the surface of the soil they are 
 now raised 2 or 3 feet above. It is here that one can yet find agricul- 
 ture almost as primitive as that of the days of Pharaoh, where grain 
 is reaped with the sickle and thrashed by the trampling of goats. 
 
 EARLY IRRIGATION IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 From these settlements and from the conquered cities of Mexico 
 adventurous missionaries pushed their way still farther westward 
 until they came in sight of the Pacific, teaching the Indians the crude 
 art of irrigation, which they had learned either in Spain or of the sim- 
 ple inhabitants of the interior, and making oases of bloom and fruit- 
 age among the hills and deserts of the coast. So came the early 
 
 591 
 
t 
 592 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 churches and gardens of California and the first small impulse toward 
 the conquest of its fertile soil, which must always be gratefully asso- 
 ciated with the memory of the Mission fathers. 
 
 Measured by their cost or the skill required to construct them, the 
 small, rude furrows which watered these gardens are now of little 
 importance. Compared to the monumental engineering works which 
 have succeeded them, they possess to-day but little interest. The best 
 preserved of these Mission gardens is now an insignificant feature in a 
 landscape which includes miles on miles of cement-lined aqueducts, 
 scores of pumping stations, and acres on acres of orange and lemon 
 orchards, cultivated with thoroughness and skill not surpassed in any 
 section of the Old World or the New. It was far different at the end 
 of the eighteenth century, when the thirty or more of these gardens 
 which were scattered along the coast between the Mexican border and 
 San Francisco were the sole resting places of weary travelers and their 
 fruit and foliage the only relief in summer from the monotonous land- 
 scape presented by the brown and arid hills which surrounded them 
 on every side. They were under those conditions not only successful 
 centers of influence from which to carry on the Christianizing of the 
 Indian tribes, but forces tending to break up the migratory impulse by 
 the establishing of homes among the earty Spanish explorers. 
 
 BEGINNINGS OF MODERN IRRIGATION. 
 
 For the beginnings of ^nglo-Saxon irrigation in this country we 
 must go to the Salt Lake Valley of Utah, where, in July, 1849', the 
 Mormon pioneers turned the clear waters of City Creek upon the sun- 
 baked and alkaline soil in order that they might plant the very last 
 of their stock of potatoes in the hope of bringing forth a crop to save 
 the little company from starvation. 
 
 Utah is interesting not merely becanse it is the cradle of our modern 
 irrigation industry, but even more so as showing how important are 
 organizations and public control in the diversion and use of rivers. 
 Throughout the pioneer period of their history the settlers of Utah 
 were under the direction of exceptionally able and resourceful leaders, 
 who were aided by the fact that their followers were knit together by 
 a dominating religious impulse. These leaders had the wisdom to 
 adapt their methods and shape their institutions to conform to the 
 peculiar conditions and environment of a land strange and new to 
 men of English speech. They found that irrigation was necessary to 
 their existence in the home that they had chosen, and that the irriga- 
 tion canal must therefore be the basis of their industrial organization, 
 which was largely cooperative; hence, the size of their farms, which 
 are less than 30 acres upon the average, the nature of their social 
 relations, which are close and neighborly. (Pis. LIV and LV show 
 some methods of irrigation and the improvement following the irriga- 
 tion canal.) 
 
Yearbook U, S Dept of Agriculture, 1899. 
 
 PLATE LIV. 
 
 FIG. 1. THE FIRST IRRIGATION. 
 
 FIG. 2. A LATER IRRIGATION. 
 
Yearbook U. S. Dept of Agriculture, 1899. 
 
 PLATE LV. 
 
 FIG. 1 .APPEARANCE OF IRRIGATION CANAL WHEN FIRST COMPLETED. 
 
 FIG. 2. APPEARANCE OF IRRIGATION CANAL TEN YEARS AFTER COMPLETION. 
 
Yearbook U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1899. 
 
 PLATE LVI. 
 
 FIG. 1. VIEW AT THE HEAD OF ONE OF THE EARLY IRRIGATION CANALS IN UTAH. 
 
 FIG. 2. MOUNT UNION, FROM UNION PASS. 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 593 
 
 That the great material results which quickly followed could have 
 been realized without the cohesion which came from an association 
 dominated by religious discipline and controlled by the superior intel- 
 ligence of the head of the Mormon Church, is doubtful ; but that the 
 character of institutions in the valleys of Utah, both industrial and 
 social, was chiefly due to the environments in which they were placed 
 is beyond dispute. Cooperation became the dominant principle sim- 
 ply because the settlers w r ere in a land without capital, and it was 
 beyond the power of the individual to turn the mountain current from 
 its course and spread it upon his lands. Only the labor of many indi- 
 viduals, working under organization and discipline, could make the 
 canals or distribute the waters. A small farm unit was chosen, not 
 because men were less greedy for land than in all other new countries, 
 but because it was quickly seen that the extent of the water supply 
 was the measure of production, and their ability to provide this was 
 small. Diversified farming, which is one of the leading causes of the 
 remarkably even prosperity of Mormon agriculture, was resorted to 
 because the Territory was so far removed from other settlements that 
 it was compelled to become absolutely self-sustaining. The small 
 farm unit made near neighbors, and this advantage was still more 
 enhanced by assembling the farmers' homes in convenient village 
 centers. One reason for adopting this plan, in" the first place, was 
 doubtless for protection against the Indians, but it has become a per- 
 manent feature, which is still adhered to in making new settlements 
 because most satisfactory to the social instinct. (A view at the head 
 of one of the early irrigation canals in Utah is shown in PI. LVI, fig. 1.) 
 
 COOPERATIVE COLONIES IN COLORADO AND CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The discovery of gold in California created the Overland Trail, which 
 wound its tortuous course across the hitherto trackless wastes of the 
 arid domain. Its stations were usually along the banks of the streams. 
 In the neighborhood of these, settlers had established themselves, and 
 by means of simple furrows turned the waters of the streams upon the 
 bottom land. This was the extent of irrigation throughout the vast 
 region it traversed, outside of Utah, before the Union Colony at Gree- 
 ley, Colo., became the second historic instance of the beginnings of 
 the present system, and one which furnished a different standpoint 
 for a study of the subject. 
 
 As Utah is the result of a religious emigration, so Greeley is the 
 creation of the town meeting. Its founding marked the beginning of 
 a new and different industrial development in Colorado. Before this 
 it was the wealth of the mines or the migratory and adventurous 
 experiences of the range live-stock business which had attracted set- 
 tlement. Greeley, on the contrary, represented an effort of home- 
 making people, both to enjoy landed independence and social and 
 intellectual privileges equal to those of the towns and cities the} 7 had 
 1 A 99 38 
 
594 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 left. Among its first buildings was Colony Hall, and among its first 
 organizations the Lyceum, in which all the affairs of the community 
 were debated with a fervor and fearlessness quite worthy of Horace 
 Greeley's following. Cooperation was adopted in the construction 
 and management of public utilities, of which the irrigation canal was 
 the first and most important. The wisdom and justice of making 
 common propert} r of the town site, the beauty and value of which 
 could only be created by the enterprise and public spirit of all, was 
 recognized and put into practice with satisfactory results. The only 
 deliberate extravagance was the erection at an early day of a school 
 building worthy of the oldest and richest Xew England community. 
 The highest methods both of irrigation and cultivation were sought 
 out through numberless experiments, until Greeley and its potatoes 
 grew famous together. The home and civic institutions of the colony 
 became the pride of the State, and the hard-won success of the com- 
 munity inspired numerous similar undertakings and furnished an 
 impulse which resulted in the reclamation and settlement of northern 
 Colorado. Boulder, Longmont, Loveland, and Fort Collins were the 
 outgrowth of success at Greeley, and each adopted many of the ideas 
 and tendencies of the parent colony. 
 
 Twenty years subsequent to the beginning of Utah, and contempo- 
 raneously with the settlement of Colorado, similar influences began 
 to make themselves felt in California, especially in its southern part. 
 Anaheim is called the mother colony. This was cooperative in its 
 inception, and its principal irrigation system has ever remained such. 
 Riverside followed a few years later and represented a higher ideal ; 
 but the spirit of speculation in which California civilization was born 
 soon fastened itself upon irrigation, as it had done in the case of min- 
 ing, and ran a mad race through southern California. Irrigation in 
 this State became corporate and speculative. Where Utah and Col- 
 orado had depended only upon their hands and teams for the building 
 of irrigation works, California issued stocks and bonds, and so mort- 
 gaged its future. Men began to dream of a new race of millionaires, 
 created by making merchandise of the melting snows, by selling 
 "rights" to the "renting" of water, and collecting annual toll from 
 a new class of society, to be known as "water tenants." 
 
 CORPORATE CANAL BUILDING. 
 
 The investment of corporate capital in canals to distribute and 
 control water used in irrigation began in California, but spread like 
 a contagion throughout the West. For a quarter of a century it has 
 been the leading factor in promoting agricultural growth of the west- 
 ern two-fifths of the United States. It has been the agency through 
 which many millions of dollars have been raised and expended, 
 hundreds of miles of canals constructed, and hundreds of thousands 
 of acres of land reclaimed. It has built the largest overfall dam ever 
 
Yearbook U S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1899 
 
 PLATE LVII. 
 
 FIG. 1. CANAL WASTE GATE CLOSED 
 
 FIG. 2. CANAL WASTE GATE OPEN. 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 595 
 
 placed in a large river. It has been the chief agency in replacing 
 temporary wooden structures by massive headworks of steel and 
 masonry, and has, by the emplojanent of the highest engineering 
 talent available and the introduction of better methods of construc- 
 tion, promoted the economy and success with which water is now 
 distributed and used. The question which is now to be considered is 
 how the vast fabric created through its agency is to be directed and 
 controlled in order that it may not crumble of its. own weight. (PI. 
 LVIL) 
 
 The construction of irrigation works by corporate capital came as 
 a natural if not inevitable evolution. There came a time in the dis- 
 tricts first settled when the opportunities to divert water cheaply had 
 largely been utilized, and when the expenditure required was beyond 
 the means of either the individual or the cooperation of many indi- 
 viduals. The preliminary outlay was too great. In older European 
 countries experience has shown that no agency can be so wisely 
 intrusted with these larger expenditures as the State. Large irriga- 
 tion canals have been considered as being, in their nature, as much 
 public improvements as are works to supply water to cities and towns. 
 Being for the service of the public, those in older European countries 
 have largely passed under public ownership. 
 
 In this country corporations have, so far as construction is con- 
 cerned, taken the place of governmental agencies in other lands. 
 Practically all of the larger and costlier works built within the last 
 two decades have been of this character. The High Line Canal, which 
 waters the land surrounding Denver, Colo., with its tunnel through the 
 mountains and its aqueduct carried along the rocky cliffs below; the 
 canals of the Wyoming Development Company, with its tunnel alone 
 costing more than all the Greeley Colony canals combined, and its 
 reservoir for storing the entire year's discharge of the Laramie River; 
 the Sunnyside Canal of Washington, which when built traversed GO 
 miles of sagebrush solitude, are illustrations in three States of the 
 nature of corporate contributions to irrigation development. Even in 
 Utah, cooperation was not sufficient to reclaim all of Salt Lake- Val- 
 ley. 'For forty years the table-land north of the lake, one of the 
 largest and best tracts of irrigable land in the valley, remained unoc- 
 cupied, while the sons of the pioneers were compelled to seek homes 
 in the surrounding States. To reclaim this land, a canal had to be 
 carried for 3 miles along the precipitous sides of Bear River Canyon. 
 The flow of the river had to be controlled by an extensive dam and 
 theMalad River twice bridged by long and high aqueducts, and the 
 million-dollar outlay required was more than home seekers could 
 provide. 
 
 The creation of water- right complications came with the building 
 of corporate canals. Previous to this it had been the rule for those 
 who built ditches to own the land they watered, and there was little 
 
596 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 difference as to whether the right to water went with the ditch or with 
 the land, because the ownership of both was united in the same person. 
 But when companies were organized to distribute water for others to 
 irrigate with and to derive a revenue from water rentals, there arose 
 the question as to who was the owner of the right to the water 
 diverted the company transporting the water or the farmer who used 
 it. The laws of nearly all the Western States make the ditch owner 
 the appropriator. .This has created a divided ownership of land and 
 water, and many canal companies have framed water-right contracts 
 on the theory of absolute ownership. These have proven a source of 
 constant irritation to farmers. Some of these contracts require the 
 farmer to pay, at the outset, a royalty or bonus for the "right" to 
 receive water, the charge for this right varying from $5 to $500 per 
 acre, depending on the scarcity of the water supply or the value of 
 land and its products. There is a very prevalent feeling among 
 farmers that as they are the actual "beneficial users" of the stream, 
 they should be considered the appf opriators, or at least that the owner 
 of the laud should share with the owner of the ditch in the right to 
 water. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO CORPORATE CANALS. 
 
 Having dealt with the benefits derived from corporate investments 
 in irrigation works, it is now proper to point out their defects. The 
 most serious one is' that nearly all large canals have been losing invest- 
 ments. The record of these losses is so stupendous that it is reluc- 
 tantly referred to. A single enterprise in one of the Territories repre- 
 sents to its projectors a loss of over $2,000,000. The Bear River Canal, 
 in Utah, which cost over a million dollars, was recently sold under a 
 judgment for about one-tenth of this sum. A single canal in Cali- 
 fornia represents a loss to its builders of over $800,000. These are 
 not isolated cases. Similar instances might be multiplied indefi- 
 nitely. They are not due to bad management, to dishonesty, or faulty 
 engineering. Some of the worst failures in a financial sense have been 
 handled by the brightest and most experienced men in the West, but 
 the} T were not able to make their enterprises pay, that is, they -have 
 not paid their builders. Nearly all have been a success so far as the 
 section interested was concerned, but the benefits have gone to the 
 public and not to the investors. The reasons for this should be more 
 generally understood. The following are the most important: 
 
 (1) The necessarily long delay in securing settlers for the land to 
 be irrigated and in obtaining paying customers for the water to be 
 furnished. 
 
 (2) The large outlay and several 3 7 ears of unprofitable labor required, 
 as a rule, to put wild land in condition for cultivation. Settlers of 
 limited means can not meet this outlay and in addition pay water 
 rentals. Nearly all of the settlers on arid public land are men of 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 597 
 
 limited means; hence, canal companies have at the outset to furnish 
 water at small cost, or furnish to a small number of consumers. 
 
 (3) The unsuitability of the. public-land laws to irrigation develop- 
 ment. 
 
 (4) The acquirement of the lands to be reclaimed, in many instances, 
 before canals are completed by nonresident or speculative holders, who 
 would do nothing for their improvement. 
 
 (o) Expenses of litigation. Experience has shown that in the esti- 
 mates of cost of a large canal provision should be made for a large 
 and long-continued outlay for litigation. It begins with the adjudi- 
 cation of the stream and is protracted through the controversies over 
 water rights. 
 
 WATER-RIGHT PROBLEMS OF THE ARID REGIONS. 
 
 After this brief sketch of the beginnings of American irrigation, 
 some of the lessons of which will be considered at a later point in this 
 article, we may appropriately turn to the great arid region as a whole 
 and the complex legal, economic, and social problems with which its 
 agriculture will vex the future. 
 
 Mount Union (PI. LVI, fig. 2) rises in solemn grandeur in the Wind 
 River Mountains of Wyoming south of Yellowstone Park. From this 
 peak flow three streams, which, with their tributaries, control the 
 industrial future of a region greater than any European country save 
 Russia, and capable of supporting a larger population than now dwells 
 east of the "Mississippi River. These streams are the Missouri, the 
 Columbia, and the Colorado. The first waters the mountain valleys 
 on the eastern slope of the Rockies and the semiarid region of the 
 Great Plains; the second, the Pacific northwest, including part of 
 Montana, all of Idaho, and the major portions of Oregon and Wash- 
 ington; the third, the Southwest, embracing much of Utah and west- 
 ern Colorado, parts of New Mexico and California, and all of Arizona. 
 
 In this vast district, when reclaimed, homes may be made for many 
 millions of people. To effect this result is a task inferior to no other 
 in the realm of statesmanship or social economics. It is the nation's 
 farm. It contains practically all that is left of the public domain, 
 and is the chief hope of a free home for those who dream of enjoying 
 landed independence, but who have but little besides industry and 
 self-denial with which to secure it. As it is now, this land has but 
 little value. In many places a township would not support a settler 
 and his family, and a section of land does not yield enough to keep a 
 light-footed and laborious sheep from starving to death. This is not 
 because the land lacks fertility, but because it lacks moisture. Where 
 rivers have been turned from their course, the products which have 
 resulted equal in excellence and amount those of the most favored 
 district of ample rainfall. 
 
598 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 There are only 6,000,000 acres of cultivated land along the Nile. It 
 is all irrigated. Where there is no irrigation there is desert. This 
 little patch of ground has made Eg} 7 pt a landmark in the world's his- 
 tory. It supports over 5,000,000 people and pays the interest on a 
 national debt half as large as our own. The Missouri and its tribu- 
 taries can be made to irrigate three times the land now cultivated 
 along the Nile. 
 
 The essence of the problem to be met at the outset is the control 
 and distribution of the water supply, since not only the enduring 
 prosperity but the very existence of the homes created will be con- 
 ditioned upon the ability to use these rivers for irrigation. The 
 diverse interest of individuals and communities, and even of different 
 States, will all be dependent on streams flowing from a common 
 source. To reclaim all the land possible will involve the spreading of 
 water over a surface as large as New England with New York added. 
 Standing now at the birth of things and looking down the vista of 
 the future, we can see in the course of these rivers the dim outline of 
 a mighty civilization, blest with peace and crowned with a remarkable 
 degree of prosperity, in case wise laws and just policies shall prevail 
 in the } 7 ears of the immediate future while institutions are forming. 
 But if it be otherwise, if greed and ignorance are allowed to govern, 
 and we ignore the experience of older countries than ours, there will 
 remain to us only a gloomy forecast of legal, economic, and, possibly, 
 even civil strife. 
 
 THE APPEARANCE AND RESOURCES OF THE ARID REGION. 
 
 In discussing this phase of the subject, let us follow the Missouri, 
 Columbia, and Colorado rivers in their lonesome courses through 
 mountains, plain, and desert to the place where one joins the Missis- 
 sippi, where another mingles its waters with the Pacific, and Avhere a 
 third flows into the Gulf of California. For it is not only interesting 
 but important to see in the midst of what surroundings so large a 
 future population must dwell, and upon what other resources than 
 water and land it will rear its economic edifice. 
 
 The climate of the western half of the United States takes its chief 
 characteristic from its aridity, or dryness. The heat of its Southern 
 summers and the cold of its Northern winters are alike tempered and 
 mitigated by lack of humidity. Neither the humid heat which pros- 
 trates nor the humid cold which penetrates to the marrow is known 
 in the arid region. The Western mountains and valleys are a recog- 
 nized natural sanitarium where thousands of invalids are sent each 
 year by physicians to regain their health. 
 
 The dominant feature in the physical appearance of the arid regions 
 is its mountain topography. On every hand a rugged horizon meets 
 the view. From North to South, from Canada to Mexico, the Rocky 
 Mountain Range makes the backbone of the continent. Along the 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 599 
 
 Pacific coast the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges lift their barriers 
 to intercept the moisture and condense it into snow. Between these 
 two principal chains, with their connecting ranges and outlying spurs, 
 are many minor systems, so that the whole country is a succession of 
 mountains and valleys, of forests and deserts, of raging .torrents and 
 sinuous rivers winding to their sinks upon the plains or making their 
 difficult way to the distant ocean. The far West is thus a land of the 
 greatest scenic beauties, and widely celebrated as such. 
 
 The cultivable lands lie in the valleys, rising with gradual slope on 
 either side of the streams to meet the foothills. Narrowing to the 
 mountains, these vallej^s widen as the river loses grade and approaches 
 the sea or its confluence with a larger stream. There are valleys 
 which will accommodate hundreds, others, thousands or tens of thou- 
 sands, and a few, like the Sacramento, in California, where millions 
 may dwell. 
 
 In the eastern portion of the arid region, and in high altitudes 
 farther west, the land is covered with nutritious natural grasses, which 
 furnish ideal range for live stock. But the characteristic badge of 
 the region is the sagebrush. This brave plant of the desert is com- 
 monly held in derision by those who behold it for the. first time, and 
 until they learn to know it as the shelter and dependence of range 
 live stock when the terrible blizzard sweeps from the north and as the 
 sure indication of good soil and the humble prophet of the field, 
 orchard, and garden. Thus, it happens that to the casual traveler 
 the appearance of the region is forbidding. It is only in localities 
 where the work of reclamation has been in progress long enough to 
 permit the growth of trees, with farms and homes, that the value of 
 the soil and climate can be appreciated. There are such instances in 
 all the seventeen States and Territories of the far West. One of the 
 most striking is the Salt River Valley of Arizona. Here the traveler, 
 after a long and tiresome journey through waste places, finds himself 
 suddenly confronted with homes rivaling in taste and luxury those of 
 Eastern States, and with orchards and gardens which resemble more 
 the century-old gardens of France and Italy than a creation of the 
 last twenty years. 
 
 Similar instances are the San Bernardino Valley of southern Cali- 
 fornia, the Salt Lake Valley of Utah, and the Boise Valley of Idaho. 
 
 MINERAL WEALTH OF TE ARID REGION, 
 
 Another fact which contributes to the breadth of the economic 
 foundation of Western agriculture is the variety and value of its min- 
 eral wealth. In this it is richly endowed; not only with the precious 
 metals, but with the baser ones used in arts and industries, and with 
 unusual quantities of coal, ore, and building stone, the latter of which 
 includes many rare and valuable kinds, such as marble, onyx, and 
 agate. 
 
600 YEARBOOK OP THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 While the annual value of these products runs into the tens of mil- 
 lions of dollars, it is literally true that their development is yet in its 
 infancy. With the extension of railroad facilities, the improvement 
 and cheapening of mining processes, the extension of agriculture, and 
 consequent increase in the volume and decrease in the cost of the home 
 food supply, the gain in annual production will assume in the future 
 dimensions which would now be considered beyond belief. 
 
 SOURCES OF FUTURE PERMANENT PROSPERITY IN THE ARID REGION. 
 
 To the mines must be added the forests which clothe the mountain 
 sides, especially those of the northern part of this region. To a large 
 extent this is still virgin ground, where only the foot of the hunter 
 and explorer has trodden. It is a region unrivaled in its opportuni- 
 ties for the development of water power. The Shoshone Falls in Idaho 
 are scarcely inferior to those of Niagara. The hundreds of streams 
 which fall from the 10,000-foot level of the Rocky Mountain Range to 
 the 4,000-foot to 5,000-foot level of the plain at their base are destined 
 to turn more wheels of industry than have yet been harnessed west of 
 the Mississippi River. Back of the irrigated lands are the grazing 
 lands, of which there are probably not less than 400,000,000 acres. 
 These lands have been the dominant factor of the pioneer life of many 
 of the arid Commonwealths, and they are destined, under proper man- 
 agement, to always constitute the great nursery of cattle, sheep, and 
 horses. The irrigated farm has back of it the mine, the furnace, 
 and factory, and the civilization of Western America can not fail 
 to have a prosperous and varied industrial life. Here there can 
 be no one-sided development, no community exclusively devoted to 
 the production of corn, wheat, or cotton, to manufactures, or to com- 
 merce. The farm, the stock ranch, the lumber camp, the mine, the 
 factory, and the store are destined to grow up and flourish side by 
 side, each drawing support from and furnishing sustenance to the 
 others. 
 
 PRESENT AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 
 
 The present situation, the results secured, and the tasks ahead in 
 securing a wise disposal of the arid lands and in preventing the rivers 
 from becoming an instrument of monopoly and extortion, will now be 
 considered. 
 
 We are met at the outset by an entire absence of definite informa- 
 tion. We do not know, nor is there any ready means of determining, 
 how many irrigation works have been built. In many States no pro- 
 vision is made for their record. In only two States is this record 
 even measurably accurate or complete. There may be 75,000 com- 
 pleted ditches, or there may be double the number, but either as to 
 their number or as to the number of acres of land reclaimed thereby 
 there is only surmise and conjecture. This, however, is known, that 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 601 
 
 the highest priced and most productive farm lands on this continent 
 are in the arid region; that the largest yield of nearly every staple 
 crop has been obtained by the aid of irrigation; that not only has the 
 growth of agriculture furnished a market for the factories of the 
 East and supported the railroads which unite the two extremes of 
 the country, but it is the chief resource of nearly every one of the 
 arid States. Colorado leads all the States of the Union in her output 
 of precious metals, but the value of the product of her farms is nearly 
 double that of her mines. 
 
 In California it is the grain fields and orange orchards which sup- 
 port the majority of her industrial population and furnish the basis 
 for her future material growth and prosperity. The beginnings of 
 Utah were wholty agricultural, and without the irrigated farms the 
 cities of that interior Commonwealth would as yet be only a dream. 
 In a less striking degree the same condition prevails in Idaho, Wyo- 
 ming, Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona. This is the situation, 
 while irrigation is as yet in its infancy. The reclaimed areas, though 
 making a large aggregate, look very insignificant relatively to the rest 
 of the country when delineated upon a map of the arid region. The 
 possibilities of reclamation have but begun to be realized, yet when 
 every available drop of water shall have been applied to the soil the 
 irrigated lands will constitute a comparatively small proportion of the 
 entire country. The possibilities of irrigation are, however, to be 
 measured not alone by the possible extent of the agricultural industry, 
 but by the development of other resources which it will make feasible. 
 The best and largest use of the grazing lands, the utilization of the 
 forests, the development of mines and quarries, and the maintenance 
 of railroads and commerce in the western half of the United States, 
 all hinge upon the control and use of streams in connection with the 
 fundamental industry of agriculture. Since irrigation is essential to 
 agriculture in the arid States, the extent and character of its develop- 
 ment must surely measure the superstructure to be built upon that 
 foundation. 
 
 GROWTH OF IRRIGATION AND NEED OF BETTER LAWS. 
 
 Some of the beginnings of irrigation have been referred to. The 
 details of its growth can not be dealt with. It has been crude in 
 many ways. There has been no attempt to provide for the diversion 
 of rivers according to some prearranged plan having for its object the 
 selection of the best land and the largest use of the water supply. 
 Instead, each appropriator of water has consulted simply his ability 
 and inclination in the location of his head gate. There has been an 
 almost complete failure to realize that the time was coming when on 
 many streams the demand would exceed the supply, and that a stable 
 water right would be as important as a valid land title. The laws 
 passed for recording claims are, as a rule, so loosely drawn and 
 
602 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 imperfect that they would be a source of amusement if the evil results 
 of their operation were not so disastrous. More than half of the State 
 laws provide for inaugurating a title to water by posting a notice on 
 the banks of the stream. They have not aided the proposed appro- 
 priator, because the right to post other appropriations was unre- 
 stricted. They are of no use as a warning to others, because not one 
 in ten thousand of the parties concerned ever see them. A search 
 for these notices along the cottonwood borders of the Missouri and its 
 tributaries would be the unending labor of a lifetime; hence, the 
 requirement was and is ignored ; it is another of the many influences 
 tending to unsettle irrigators' just rights and bringing the attempts to 
 frame laws for their protection into disrepute. 
 
 Looking over the field at the close of the century, we find that the 
 United States stands practically alone among irrigation countries in 
 having left all the work of reclamation to the unaided efforts of 
 private capital, and in the prodigality of the surrender of public con- 
 trol of streams. In one respect the policy pursued has been suc- 
 cessful. It has resulted in an enormous investment (not less than 
 $100,000,000, and some estimates make it twice that sum) and the crea- 
 tion of taxable and productive wealth of many times the amount 
 invested. We have now about reached the limit of this sort of growth. 
 There will be few large private investments in canals hereafter until 
 we have better and more liberal irrigation laws. Entrance on the 
 coming century is 'confronted by larger problems; the storage of flood 
 waters, the interstate division of streams, and the inauguration of an 
 adequate system of public control, which will insure to the humblest 
 handler of a shovel his share of the snows falling on mountains above 
 his farm, no matter how far removed therefrom he may be. 
 
 NEED OF REFORM IN THE MANAGEMENT OF ARID PUBLIC LAND. 
 
 Along with better water laws should come a corresponding reform 
 in the management of the remaining arid public land. At the outset 
 of its settlement these problems were entirely new to English-speaking 
 men. 
 
 Early settlers came from the humid portions of Europe and settled 
 along the humid coast line of the Atlantic and, later, in the humid 
 valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The land laws which they 
 applied to the public domain of their day produced excellent results, 
 making homes for millions of people and effecting a wonderful devel- 
 opment of material resources. 
 
 When settlement had proceeded under these laws to the Missouri 
 River and beyond, it was not strange that their principles were 
 extended to the remaining public domain, for the vast majority of the 
 American people had no conception whatever of the conditions exist- 
 ing in the far West. Not only the national lawmakers, drawn mostly 
 from regions of abundant rainfall, but the legislators in the arid States 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 603 
 
 themselves were blind to the necessities of the situation. . The value 
 of gold they knew, but the value of that other element of national 
 wealth, which will continue to sustain vast populations long after the 
 last ounce of gold shall have been taken from the mine, they did not 
 even dimly appreciate. So, to a large extent, they merely reenacted 
 upon their statute books the common law of rainy and foggy England. 
 
 HOMESTEAD LAW NOT ADAPTED TO THE ARID REGION. 
 
 The homestead law may have served a useful, even a beneficent, 
 purpose throughout large sections of the Republic, but it is not adapted 
 to the settlement of a region where practically nothing can be grown 
 except by artificial application of water. This fact has been learned 
 at last through many years of hardship and disappointment, at the 
 cost of many million dollars. One of the most pitiful pages in the 
 history of the West is that which records the story of the settlement 
 of the semiarid belt lying between the ninety-seventh meridian and 
 the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. This is a territory 500 miles 
 wide, extending from Canada to Mexico, including the western por- 
 tions of the two Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas, and also 
 eastern Colorado. In the absence of scientific demonstration to the 
 contrary, tens of thousands of people rushed into this territory under 
 the delusion that it was a land of reliable rainfall, or would soon 
 become such as the result of settlement and cultivation. 
 
 New settlements sprung up in every direction, and important towns 
 arose almost in a night. Men hastened from all parts of the country 
 to claim their rights under the homestead law. Remembering the 
 prosperity which similar armies of settlers had wrung from the virgin 
 soil of the West, unlimited capital lent willing support to this new 
 outward surge of growing population. The capital was largely lost, 
 but the pathetic side, of the picture was seen in the bitter disappoint- 
 ment of the settlers themselves. Many of them wasted the most use- 
 ful and pregnant years of their lives in their brave persistence in the 
 belief that the climate would change as the land came under cultiva- 
 tion, and that there was some magic potency in the homestead law to 
 overcome the processes of nature. It is recognized at last that where 
 water sufficient for purposes of irrigation can not be had the land is 
 useful only for grazing. It is a mistake for the Government to offer 
 to citizens land of that character on condition that they will settle 
 upon 160 acres of it and make a living. There can be but one of two 
 results either the settler must fail or he must become practically the 
 tenant of the person or corporation furnishing water for his dry land. 
 
 OPERATIONS OF THE DESERT-LAND LAW. 
 
 The desert- land law was devised to promote the investment of cap- 
 ital rather than to encourage settlement. For this reason it did not 
 require actual residence on the land reclaimed. Originally, whoever 
 
604 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 would irrigate 040 acres of land was given title thereto on the pay- 
 ment of the Government's price. Later this acreage has been reduced 
 to one-half the original area. The operation of this law has been 
 both useful and injurious. To give so large an area to men of small 
 means is a mistake, because it is more than is needed to make a home 
 and more than they can cultivate. It is not suited to corporate enter- 
 prise, or to reclaim large valleys which can be watered from a single 
 canal, because it makes no provision % f or concerted or effective man- 
 agement of the entire area. Its field of effective usefulness has 
 therefore been limited. While it has added somewhat to the taxable 
 and productive wealth of Western States, it has also operated to trans- 
 fer to single owners miles of water fronts which without this law 
 would have been divided up into smaller farms with better social and 
 agricultural conditions. 
 
 THE CAREY ACT. 
 
 W^hat is popularly known as the Carey Act, from the name of its 
 author, Senator Carey, gives to each State the right to segregate 
 1,000,000 acres of land and to control both its reclamation and dis- 
 posal to settlers. The limitations of the operations of this act confine 
 its benefits simply to the opportunity to secure better management 
 during the time of canal building and settlement. Five States have 
 accepted the trust, but in only one, Wyoming, have any canals been 
 completed. These canals have been built by companies operating 
 under a contract with the State. In Montana it is proposed to con- 
 struct State canals from money obtained by selling bonds secured by 
 the land to be irrigated. Enough progress has not as yet been made 
 to determine whether or not this innovation on past irrigation meth- 
 ods is to meet with success; if it does, the third step in the evolution 
 of canal building, which is the construction of State works, will have 
 been inaugurated. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE RANGE INDUSTRIES. 
 
 To a certain extent there is an inevitable conflict between those 
 who wish to use the public domain for homes and those who prefer to 
 have it reserved for pasture, and, again, between those who wish to 
 use the pasture for cattle and those who want it for sheep. 
 
 The range industries obtained possession of the field long before 
 the higher utility of the lands for irrigation and settlement was gen- 
 erally appreciated. When irrigators did come, they worked more or 
 less injury to the range stockmen, for each settler occupied a part of 
 the water front and added to the number desiring to use the free 
 grazing land. It is for the interest of the range-stock industry that 
 access to streams be made as free as possible and that nothing be 
 done to reduce their volume or prevent the overflow of natural mead- 
 ows, while the higher interest of irrigation and settlement demands 
 that the stream be diverted and its waters distributed over the widest 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 605 
 
 possible area. The conflict is between the wasteful use of water on 
 the one hand and its economical use on the other, and, in a sense, 
 between a primitive and a more highly organized civilization. 
 
 This statement should not be construed as denying that the range- 
 stock industry is of vast importance nor that it will continue to be a 
 great source of wealth to the country. Throughout the West there 
 are very large areas suited to nothing else. The point is that the 
 higher interest of society lies in the most economical and profitable 
 use of water to the end that homes may be made for the largest pos- 
 sible number. Neither water nor land laws have favored this result, 
 but precisely the contrary. The object of reform should be to pre- 
 serve and develop all interests, to adapt laws and institutions to the 
 peculiar conditions and environment of the region. This can be 
 done with far greater security to the pastoral industries than they 
 enjoy under the present system, and at the same time land and water 
 available for making homes and farms utilized to the best advantage. 
 
 UNCERTAINTY AS TO STATE AND FEDERAL JURISDICTION. 
 
 , The pioneers of irrigation are menaced by the uncertainty which 
 exists as to the limits of State and federal jurisdiction in the control 
 of streams. It has heretofore been assumed that the authority of 
 each State within its borders Avas unquestioned, and two of the States 
 contain constitutional provisions asserting absolute ownership and 
 control of all the waters within their bounds. A recent decision of 
 the United States circuit court in Montana holds this view to be erro- 
 neous, and that the snows Avhich fall on public land and the streams 
 which cross it are Jboth under the control of Congress. A similar 
 complication has arisen in litigation over a reservoir on the Rio Grande, 
 in which both interstate and international rights are involved. In 
 this case the United States Supreme Court has asserted the right of 
 the General Government to protect the interests of navigation regard- 
 less of State statutes respecting the use of water in irrigation. The 
 assertion of the paramount importance of riparian rights and of the 
 protection of navigation, regardless of the use of water in irrigation, 
 will add greatly to the uncertainty regarding water rights from the 
 tributaries of the Missouri or any other of the rivers navigable in any 
 portion of their course. The reclamation of the arid region involves 
 the absorption of streams, and it can not be settled too soon whether 
 or not such absorption is to be permitted. 
 
 COMPLICATIONS FROM LACK OF UNIFORM WATER LAWS. 
 
 . On the other hand, serious complications have arisen from the absence 
 of any general or national regulations governing the division of water 
 across State lines. There are many instances where one stream is a 
 common source of supply to irrigators in two or more States. It has 
 sometimes happened that the perennial flow of such streams has been 
 
GOG YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 first appropriated in a State along its lower course and utilized at a 
 later period by other States near its source. Neither of the States 
 concerned possesses power to remedy the evil, and each makes claim 
 to all the water flowing upon its soil. 
 
 The conditions which govern irrigation throughout much of the 
 arid region are practically uniform, and where this is true there is no 
 question that- a uniform irrigation law would operate with equal jus- 
 tice and efficiency; but, owing to the absence of such general super- 
 vision, water rights in States adjacent to each other are often as 
 different in character as if these Commonwealths were on opposite 
 sides of the globe. Failure to correct or regard these complications 
 aggravates the evils to which they give rise and renders the ultimate 
 adoption of a uniform system of laws far more difficult. There is but 
 one thing the States have shared in common, and that is endless liti- 
 gation over water rights. There is no uniformity of laws or decisions. 
 The same issues are tried over and over again, and the precedent 
 established in one case is overturned in another. The construction 
 of costly works, and even the long use of water, has not alwaj^s been 
 sufficient to secure parties in their rights. Where rights have been 
 successfully maintained, it has been done only at the price of constant 
 lawsuits. 
 
 Usually the amount of water claimed is many times in excess of 
 what the projected canal can utilize; frequently in excess of the entire 
 volume of water in the stream. There is no one to protect the public 
 interest as to the character of works to be built or to say whether 
 they conform to good public policy. The courts confirm these loose 
 appropriations, and the foundation for endless litigation is thus 
 securely laid. The question soon arises as to who first appropriated 
 the waters which do not suffice for all. There is then nothing to fall 
 back upon except the faulty filings which were originally posted on 
 the banks of the stream and the testimony of interested citizens. It 
 frequently happens that old claims for very large amounts of water 
 have not been utilized to their full extent until later comers have 
 appropriated the unused surplus. The old claim is then enforced at 
 the expense of the later one. The result is confusion, loss, and bit- 
 terness among neighbors. 
 
 The difficulty lies, first of aU, in popular misconception regarding 
 the nature of water rights and of property in water. This is enhanced 
 by lack of scientific information concerning the character and extent 
 of water supplies and of the amount required for beneficial irrigation. 
 Still further, there is a great need for a different system of appropri- 
 ating waters and of distributing a common supply among consumers. 
 These delicate and complex issues can not be fought out among pri- 
 vate parties without producing a condition of virtual anarchy, in which 
 the weak must go down and the strong survive, regardless of their 
 merits or necessities. The failure of the irrigation industry from the 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 607 
 
 financial standpoint is almost wholly due to the illogical land and 
 water laws which have been described. 
 
 METHODS AND MEASURES NEEDED TO DEVELOP THE ARID REGION. 
 
 It is well to consider now by what methods and by what measures 
 of legislation the splendid resources of the arid region may be opened 
 to development. 
 
 The first step is to determine the proper control and just distribu- 
 tion of the water supply. The problem varies with different portions 
 of the arid region. In the South, streams are generally torrential in 
 character, furnishing the bulk of their waters in heavy floods, which 
 must be stored in the many natural sites available in the mountains 
 at a distance from the places where the water is to be applied to the 
 soil. In the North, on the other hand, the problem is not that of 
 storage, but of the diversion of great rivers like the Yellowstone, the 
 Snake, the Columbia, and the Missouri. Here works adequate to the 
 reclamation of the areas of arid land which remain can only be built 
 at great cost, rivaling those along the Ganges and the Nile. 
 
 Before such development proceeds further it is desirable that some 
 common agreement should be reached concerning the true character 
 of water rights. The idea of private ownership in water apart from 
 the land can not prevail without creating institutions essentially feudal 
 in character. A water lord is even more undesirable than a landlord 
 as the dominant element in society. It is indisputable, as has already 
 been said, that the man who owns the wa$er practically owns the land. 
 A proposition which contemplates the turning over of all the land to a 
 private monopoly, thus making a tenantry of those who may have their 
 homes upon it in the future, could not hope to command popular sup- 
 port. But the idea of a private ownership of water, amounting to a 
 virtual monopoly of this vital element, has been permitted to grow 
 up in the West. To a certain extent it has obtained recognition in 
 legislation and protection in judicial decrees and decisions. In other 
 countries the doctrine has largely disappeared, and in our country it 
 should give place to a more enlightened conception, and to the only 
 principle that can safely be adopted as the foundation of the agricul- 
 tural industry in the West. 
 
 The right to water which should be recognized in an arid land is the 
 right of use, and even this must be restricted to beneficial and eco- 
 nomical use in order that the water supply may serve the needs of the 
 largest possible number. Ownership of water should be vested, not 
 in companies or individuals, but in the land itself. When this prin- 
 ciple is adopted, the control of the water is divided precisely like the 
 land, among a multitude of proprietors. Reservoirs and canals are 
 then like the streets of the town, serving a public purpose and per- 
 mitting ready access to private property on every hand. Water 
 monopoly is impossible under this method, and no other abuse is 
 
608 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 encouraged by it. Years of painful experience have abundantly 
 proven that peaceful and orderly development can not be realized 
 except as water and land are forever united in on^ ownership and 
 canals treated merel} 7 as public or semipublic utilities rather than as 
 a means of fastening a monopoly upon the community. In Wyoming 
 and Nebraska the true principle has already been adopted by the 
 State boards of control and put into practice with the best results. If 
 it can be maintained and speedily extended to the other States, as it 
 surely must be in time, it would mark an economic reform of the 
 highest significance in the life of the West. 
 
 APPROPRIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE WATER SUPPLY. 
 
 Next in importance to the correct solution of the question of water 
 ownership are the great problems of appropriation and of distribu- 
 tion. As soon as possible all ditches used in irrigation should be 
 carefully measured by some public authority and the results of this 
 measurement be given the widest publicity, in order that irrigators 
 may know approximately how much is taken and how much remains 
 to be taken by new canals. The need of this information is so obvious 
 that it will perhaps be difficult for readers unfamiliar with the sub- 
 ject to credit the assertion that in all but four of the Western States 
 the matter has been wholly neglected. This fact is largely respon- 
 sible for the disheartening litigation which prevails so widely. 
 
 It is of almost equal importance to have a scientific determination 
 of the practical duty of water, showing the amount required for differ- 
 ent soils and crops. Still further, there must be some form of public 
 control in the distribution of water. Trouble always results when 
 this is left to rival users to determine how much they need, espe- 
 cially in years of partial drought, when the supply may be insufficient 
 for all, and it is consequently necessary to recognize appropriations 
 in the order of their priority. 
 
 (Check gates on main canal and a measuring weir are shown in 
 PI. LVIII.) 
 
 PUBLIC SUPERVISION AND CONTROL OF IRRIGATION. 
 
 The entire discussion leads up to one inevitable conclusion : This is 
 that irrigation, over and above all other industries, is a matter demand- 
 ing public supervision and control. Every drop of water entering the 
 head gate, and every drop escaping at the end of the canal, is a matter 
 of public concern. The public must determine, through constitutions 
 and statutes, the nature of water ownership. The public must estab- 
 lish means for the measurement of streams and for ascertaining how 
 much water may be taken for each acre of land under the principle 
 of beneficial use. The public must see that justice is done in the 
 distribution of water among those who have properly established 
 their rightful claims to it. We have thoroughly tried the method of 
 
Yearbook U. S. Dept of Agriculture, 1899. 
 
 PLATE LVIII. 
 
 FIG. 1. A CHECK AND LATERAL GATE ON MAIN CANAL. 
 
 FIG. 2. A CIPPOLETTI MEASURING WEIR. 
 

 RISE AND FUTURE OF IRRIGATION. 609 
 
 leaving all this to private initiative and management, and, along with 
 magnificent material progress, we have reaped a large crop of deplor- 
 able financial results. 
 
 While much must be left to the action of States and communities, 
 there is still a wide field for national effort. Only the nation can leg- 
 islate as to the public lands and reform the abuses which have been 
 referred to in connection with the present system of land laws. There 
 is a strong popular demand in the West for legislation providing pub- 
 lic aid in the construction of works of too great magnitude and cost 
 for private enterprise and a growing belief that one of two things 
 should be done : Either the arid States should be placed in a position 
 to extend this aid, or the General Government should extend the work 
 it is now doing in the reclamation of certain Indian reservations to 
 the reclamation of the unoccupied public lands. One policy much 
 discussed and widely favored is legislation which will permit of the 
 leasing of the public grazing lands for a term of years at a small 
 annual rental, the proceeds to be given to the several arid States and 
 applied by them to irrigation development. If this is carried out, the 
 settlers owning the contiguous irrigated land should be favored; the 
 object being to unite with the lands reclaimed a certain portion of 
 the public pasture. 
 
 The National Government alone can make the best and broadest 
 study of the various economic questions related to the development 
 of agriculture on arid lands. This includes not only the measure- 
 ment of streams and survey of reservoir sites, but also a consideration 
 of practical methods of applying water to the soil and of social and 
 industrial institutions adapted to the environment of the arid region. 
 The nation alone can deal with the conflicting rights in interstate and 
 international streams and with the construction of great reservoirs at 
 their head waters, with a view to benefiting the several States lying 
 along their course. The National Government is already active along 
 all these lines, and the field for the expansion of its efforts is wide 
 and inviting. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF IRRIGATION UPON PEOPLE AND COUNTRY. 
 
 While a description of existing conditions in the far West neces- 
 sarily includes references to many evils and disappointments, there is 
 a brighter side to the picture, and the future is luminous with new 
 hopes for humanity. A vast population will make its homes in val- 
 leys now vacant and voiceless, yet potentially the best part of our 
 national heritage. They will create institutions which will realize 
 higher ideals of society than the world has yet seen. Irrigation is 
 much more than an affair of ditches and acres. It not only makes 
 civilization possible where men could not live without it, but it shapes 
 that civilization after its own peculiar design. Its underlying influ- 
 ence is that which makes for democracy and individual independence. 
 1 A 99 39 
 
610 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 IRRIGATION PRODUCTIVE OF SMALL PROPRIETORS. 
 
 Where land can only be cultivated by means of the artificial appli- 
 tion of water, and where that water is not under speculative control, 
 it is owned in small holdings. This is so because irrigation intensi- 
 fies the product of the land and so demands much labor. It is a kind 
 of labor which can not profitably be left to hired hands. The result 
 is a multitude of small proprietors working for themselves. This 
 fact is strikingly illustrated in southern California. Here the farms 
 are small and almost exclusively occupied by their owners. But the 
 great wheat ranches in other parts of the State, notably in the Sacra- 
 mento Valley, depend chiefly upon hired laborers, who make no 
 homes of their own. The Sacramento Valley has less population now 
 than it had twenty-five years ago. Of the increase of the rural pop- 
 ulation of the State between 1880 and 1890, 77 per cent went to the 
 irrigated counties, and largely consisted of families who bought small 
 farms and proceeded to do their own work. The influence of a great 
 mass of small proprietors tilling their own land can not fail to have a 
 very marked effect upon the character of the institutions. 
 
 DIVERSIFIED FARMING A FEATURE OF IRRIGATION. 
 
 Irrigation lends itself naturally to diversified farming and tends to 
 make population self-sufficient within itself. Although in certain 
 localities, especially those where the climate is favorable to raisins 
 ancT oranges, the contrary has sometimes been true, the tendency of 
 irrigation as a whole has been to discourage the production of single 
 crops and make families independent by producing the variety of 
 things they consume. This tendency is steadily gaining ground. 
 The diversified farming which irrigation both permits and encourages 
 will be an important element in contributing to the independence of 
 the people who shall inhabit the arid region of the future. 
 
 IRRIGATION AS A TRAINING IN SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Another interesting feature of irrigation is the training it gives in 
 self-government. A farmer under irrigation can not remain ignorant 
 and indifferent of public questions. He has to consider his interest 
 in the river which feeds his canal and the nature of his relation to 
 other users along its course. It is a training school in self-government 
 and gives the first impetus to civilization in rainless regions. The 
 capacity of the American farmer has already been demonstrated. He 
 is the author of the best of our irrigation laws. Colorado was the 
 first State to enact a law providing for the public control of streams 
 and some sort of systematic procedure for the establishment of rights, 
 but the credit of that is not due to her statesmen, but to the discus- 
 sions of theGreeley Lyceum and the public spirit and independence of 
 the irrigators under the Colony Canal. Opposed by the conservatism 
 
RISE AND FUTURE OP IRRIGATION. 611 
 
 of the legal profession and the prejudices of those not practically 
 familiar with the subject, they had a long and doubtful struggle to 
 secure the adoption of a statute which for a time made the State the 
 lawgiver of the arid region. 
 
 In Utah the practices of water users are a hundred years in advance 
 of the State laws. This is due to the fact that irrigators recognize 
 insensibly the community nature of their interest in the streams. 
 The old feudal idea of private ownership in water has never made an 
 irrigated district prosperous, and it never will. 
 
 IRRIGATION AND COOPERATION. 
 
 Another feature is the tendency toward cooperation. Under the 
 Wyoming law accepting the Carey grant this cooperation is made 
 obligatory. Every settler under a canal becomes a shareholder 
 therein. Not only does the right to water attach to the land, but a 
 share in the canal sufficient to carry the water also goes with it. In 
 fact, the need of watering many farms from a common source and of 
 organizing a community under rules and discipline for the distribu- 
 tion of the supply make a nursery of cooperation. Its most conspic- 
 uous manifestation is in the widespread and successful fruit exchanges 
 of California. There are many instances of smaller and more local 
 organizations of a cooperative industrial character, and they are mul- 
 tiplying rapidly. They seem likely to deal with yet larger affairs in 
 the future as communities gain in age, numbers, and wealth. 
 
 EFFECT OF IRRIGATION ON SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 Heretofore one of the evils of the irrigated home has been its isola- 
 tion. The valleys of many streams are narrow. The broad areas 
 which lie between these valleys are the home of cattle and sheep, but 
 not of men. The Anglo-Saxon thirst for land, and the opportunity 
 which the desert-land act gave to gratify it, resulted at first in a wide 
 separation between homes, and in a loss to the pioneer of the advan- 
 tages of schools, churches, and social life. Under the larger and 
 later canals the tendency has been in the other direction. The Euro- 
 pean custom of making homes in village centers has been adopted in 
 parts of Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and California, and steadily gains 
 - in public favor. Where farmers live in villages, their families enjoy 
 ready access to schools, churches, libraries, and entertainments. The 
 agricultural society of the future in the Western valleys will realize a 
 happy combination of town and country life the independence which 
 springs from the proprietorship of the soil and the satisfaction of the 
 social instinct which comes only with community association. Such 
 conditions are favorable to the growth of the best forms of civiliza- 
 tion and the noblest institutions. This is the hope which lies fallow 
 the arid valleys of the West. Its realization is well worth the 
 
 '" 
 
612 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 struggle which is impending for the reform of our land and water 
 laws, and which will impose high demands upon our statesmanship 
 and call for the exercise of the best order of patriotism. 
 
 THE COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE OF IRRIGATION. 
 
 The commercial importance of the development of irrigation re- 
 sources is being realized in the West at the present time as never 
 before. Especially in California there is a new awakening, and an 
 effort on the part of the best elements of citizenship to remove the 
 obstacles which have formerly hampered both public and private 
 enterprise. The East, as a whole, is beginning to realize the great part 
 which the West is to have in the events of the twentieth century. 
 World-wide forces are working to hasten the day of its complete 
 development and of the utilization of all its rich resources. The 
 Orient is awake and offering its markets to the trade of the Pacific 
 coast. With the development of this trade there will come an impulse 
 for the completion of the material conquest of arid America by the 
 enlistment of public as well as private means in the storage and 
 diversion of its streams for the irrigation of its hundred million acres 
 of irrigable soil; the harnessing of its water powers to mill and fac- 
 tory wheels; the crowding of its pastures with new millions of live 
 stock; the opening up of its mines and quarries; the conversion of 
 its forests into human habitations; the coming of a vast population, 
 and the growth of institutions worthy of the time and the place. 
 
I