Willis Drummond

“ The diversion of a large stream from its channel into a system of canals demands a large outlay of labor and material. To repay this all the waters so taken out must be used, and large tracts of land thus become dependent upon a single canal. It is manifest that a farmer depending upon his own labor cannot undertake this task. To a great extent the small streams are already employed, and but a comparatively small portion of the irrigable lands can be thus redeemed; hence the chief future development of irrigation must come from the use of the larger streams. ”

“ By comparing the volumes of certain streams in Utah, that are now used in irrigation to their full capacity, with the quantities of land that they serve, I have found that one hundred acres of dry bench land (i. e., land with a deep, dry, open subsoil) will not yield a full crop of grain with less than one cubic foot of water per second, and this under the most favorable climate of the Territory. Where the climate is drier, a greater quantity is required. Where there is a moist subsoil, a less may suffice. ”

“ In many places in the Arid Region irrigation companies are organized who obtain vested rights in the waters they control, and consequently the rights to such waters do not inhere in any particular tracts of land.
When the area to which it is possible to take the water of any given stream is much greater than the stream is competent to serve, if the land titles and water rights are severed, the owner of any tract of land is at the mercy of the owner of the water right. In general, the lands greatly exceed the capacities of the streams. Thus the lands have no value without water. ”

“ To a large extent it is a region where timber may be successfully cultivated. As the rainfall is on a general average nearly sufficient for continuous successful agriculture, the amount of water to be supplied by irrigating canals will be comparatively small, so that its streams can serve proportionally larger areas than the streams of the Arid Region. In its first settlement the people will be favored by having lands easily subdued, but they will have to contend against a lack of timber. Eventually this will be a region of great agricultural wealth, as in general the soils are good. ”

“ Outlying the Brown Cliffs are the Book Cliffs. These, also, are escarpments of naked rock, with many salient and reëntrant angles and outlying buttes. The beds of which they are composed are shales and sandstones of many shades of blue, gray, and buff. In the distance, and softly blended by atmospheric haze, the towering walls have an azure hue. ”

“ Lands washed by the brine of the lake become saturated with salt to such extent that even salt-loving plants cannot live upon them, and it is a familiar fact that the sage (Artemisia sempervirens) never grows in Utah upon soil so saline as to be unfavorable for grain. The rains of many years, and perhaps even of centuries, would be needed to cleanse land abandoned by the lake so that it could sustain the salt-hating bushes, and we cannot avoid the conclusion that the ancient storm line had been for a long period the superior limit of the fluctuations of the lake surface. ”

“ Any unequal distribution of rain through the year, though the inequality be so slight as not to produce “rainy seasons”, affects agriculture either favorably or unfavorably. If the spring and summer precipitation exceeds that of the fall and winter, a smaller amount of annual rain may be sufficient; but if the rainfall during the season of growing crops is less than the average of the same length of time during the remainder of the year, a greater amount of annual precipitation is necessary. ”

“ When the air is exceedingly dry, as it invariably is in summer throughout the whole Rocky Mountain Region at moderate altitudes, the evaporative power becomes so great and extends to such a depth below the immediate surface, that we are unable to recognize the slightest traces of moisture indicating that evaporation is going on. The water which may have accumulated beneath has gradually risen by percolation through the interstices of the unconsolidated materials of the soil, bringing with it whatever soluble salts it may have taken into solution during its sojourn beneath the surface. ”

“ In general the winter aridity is so great that the grasses when touched by the frosts are not washed down by the rains and snows to decay on the moist soil, but stand firmly on the ground all winter long and “cure”, forming a quasi uncut hay. Thus the grass lands are of value both in summer and winter. In a broad way, the greater or lesser abundance of the grasses is [Pg 20] dependent on latitude and altitude; the higher the latitude the better are the grasses, and they improve as the altitude increases. ”

“ On the whole, it appears that the white man causes a greater percentage of the precipitation in snow to be melted and a less percentage to be evaporated directly. This follows from the destruction of trees and of grass. By reducing the amount of vegetation he gives a freer flow to the water from rain and melting snow and carries a greater percentage of it to streams, while a smaller percentage reaches the air by evaporation from the soil. By the treading of his cattle he diminishes the leakage of the smaller water channels, and conserves the streams gathered there. ”

“ In the more elevated regions there are tracts of meadow land from which small crops of hay can be taken: such lands being at higher altitudes need less moisture, and at the same time receive a greater amount of rainfall because of the altitude; but these meadows have been, often are, and in future will be, still more improved by irrigation. Again, on the belt of country lying between Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Mountains the local rainfall is much greater than the general rainfall of the region. ”

“ The amount of arable land which may be reached by the waters of the stream is very much larger than the stream can water advantageously, and the time is probably not far distant when all the water that can be obtained will be utilized in producing cereals, and there is probably no other region in Utah where the various problems relating to the most economic use of water will be solved so speedily. It is, therefore, a region of unusual interest, regarded in the light of the new industrial problems which the irrigation of these western lands is now bringing forward. ”

“ The climate of the basin is one of extreme aridity. The prevailing wind is westerly. The high plateaus and mountains forming the western rim of the basin force these winds up to an altitude above the sea of over 10,000 feet, and thus act as great condensers to deprive them of their moisture. Flowing down from the higher lands into the warmer regions below, their capacity for absorption is increased, and during the greater portion of the year the winds abstract from rather than add to the humidity of the lower altitudes. ”

“ Those who are acquainted with the history of the land system of the eastern states, and know the difficulty of properly identifying or determining the boundaries of many of the parcels or tracts of land into which the country is divided, and who appreciate the cumbrous method of describing such lands by metes and bounds in conveyances, may at first thought object to the plan of parceling lands into irregular tracts. ”

“ But in all these varying conditions of time and space there is one fact which must control our conclusions in considering most of the lands of the Arid Region, namely: any district of country which we may be studying is liable for many seasons in a long series to be without rainfall, when the whole supply must be received from irrigation. Safety in agricultural operations will be secured by neglecting the rainfall and considering only the supply of water to be furnished by artificial methods; the less favorable seasons must be considered; in the more favorable there will be a surplus. ”

“ The islands, however, are little flooded; the water does not accumulate against them, but is driven past; and the easterly gales that produced the present storm line on the east shore of Antelope Island may have driven so much water to the westward as even to have depressed the level in that locality. Moreover, where the land surface is nearly level, the cleansing by rain of portions once submerged is indefinitely retarded. On all the flatter shores the lake is bordered by tracts too saline for reclamation by the farmer, and either bare of vegetation or scantily covered by salt-loving shrubs. ”

“ Only a small fraction will be needed for the next century. Only those lands should be classed as coal lands that contain beds of coal easily accessible, and where there is a possibility of their being used as such within the next generation or two. To designate or set apart these lands will require the highest geological skill; a thorough geological survey is necessary.
In providing for a general classification of the lands of the Arid Region, it will, then, be necessary to recognize the following classes, namely: mineral lands, coal lands, irrigable lands, timber lands, and pasturage lands. ”

“ The evidence that the growth of timber, if protected from fires, might be extended to the limits here given is abundant. It is a matter of experience that planted forests thus protected will thrive throughout the prairie region and far westward on the Great Plains. In the mountain region it may be frequently observed that forest trees grow low down on the mountain slopes and in the higher valleys wherever local circumstances protect them from fires, as in the case of rocky lands that give insufficient footing to the grass and shrubs in which fires generally spread. ”

“ In general the people have selected their lands low down, in order to obtain a more genial climate. Yet the irrigable lands are not very far from the mountains, as a glance at the map will reveal. Utah Lake constitutes a fine natural reservoir and discharges its waters into Salt Lake by the Jordan, and from its channel the waters may be conducted over a large area of country. The waters of the Weber and Bear Rivers, now flowing idly into the lake, will soon be spread over extensive valleys, and the area of agricultural lands be greatly increased. ”

“ A farmer settling on a small tract, to be redeemed by irrigation, should be given a reasonable length of time in which to secure his water right by utilization, that he may secure it by his own labor, either directly by constructing the waterways himself, or indirectly by coöperating with his neighbors in constructing systems of waterways. Without this provision there is little inducement for poor men to commence farming operations, and men of ready capital only will engage in such enterprises. ”

“ In the San Pete Valley, which has been longest cultivated, the decrease in the amount of water applied to the oldest lands has not yet ceased, though some fields have been cultivated with regularity since 1857. The fresh soils are highly porous and absorptive, requiring a large quantity of water for their irrigation, and not retaining this moisture well under the great evaporative power of a dry and hot atmosphere. With successive irrigations, the pores of the soil are gradually closed and the earth is slowly compacted by the infiltration of impalpable silt brought by the irrigating waters. ”

“ The pioneers in the “new countries” in the United States have invariably been characterized by enterprise and industry and an intense desire for the speedy development of their new homes. These characteristics are no whit less prominent in the Rocky Mountain Region than in the earlier “new countries”; but they are even more apparent. The hardy pioneers engage in a multiplicity of industrial enterprises surprising to the people of long established habits and institutions. ”

“ The grass is so scanty that the herdsman must have a large area for the support of his stock. In general a quarter section of land alone is of no value to him; the pasturage it affords is entirely inadequate to the wants of a herd that the poorest man needs for his support.
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Four square miles may be considered as the minimum amount necessary for a pasturage farm, and a still greater amount is necessary for the larger part of the lands; that is, pasturage farms, to be of any practicable value, must be of at least 2,560 acres, and in many districts they must be much larger. ”

“ So great is the loss from these causes that some streams fail to reach the main drainage channel during the warmer months, and all are greatly shrunken in volume. All the arable lands—or lands where altitude, slope of surface, and quality of soil permit successful cultivation, if a supply of water can be obtained, and from which lands to irrigate, or irrigable lands, may be selected—are in the valleys adjacent to the streams. Usually this area in many valleys is in excess of that which the water in the streams can irrigate, and choice in the location of lands to cultivate is often practicable. ”

“ In very low altitudes and latitudes the grasses are so scant as to be of no value; here the true deserts are found. These conditions obtain in southern California, southern Nevada, southern Arizona, and southern New Mexico, where broad reaches of land are naked of vegetation, but in ascending to the higher lands the grass steadily improves. Northward the deserts soon disappear, and the grass becomes more and more luxuriant to our northern boundary. In addition to the desert lands mentioned, other large deductions must be made from the area of the pasturage lands. ”

“ The mining industries which have sprung up in the country since the discovery of gold on the Pacific coast, in 1849, have stimulated immigration, so that settlements are scattered throughout the Arid Region; mining towns have sprung up on the flanks of almost every great range of mountains, and adjacent valleys have been occupied by persons desiring to engage in agriculture. Many of the lands surveyed along the minor streams have been entered, and the titles to these lands are in the hands of actual settlers. ”