Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1893 — LAND IN AN ARID BELT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LAND IN AN ARID BELT

ITS VALUE GREATLY INCREASED BY IRRIGATION. The Wonderful Progress During • Decade —Over 17,000,000 Acres Coder Irrigation Ditches and Upward of 13,000 Artesian Wells in Use. Worthless Acres Redeemed. The most remarkable fact In the history of the country to-day* is the development of the Paci3c West. Formerly dependent for its prosper* ity on its minerals and shunned by agriculturists on account of its arid lands, it has changed all tnis by its achievements in irrigation and now mining camps and desert acres are converted into fertile fields, gardens, and vineyards. Though known from the dawn of civilization and employed on this continent by races that have vanished forever, irrigation is to us something of a rediscovery. Its use among us is very recent Where a decade ago were sun-scorch-] ed plains and valleys, with no sound of animal life, but here and there a mockery of vegetation, are now a large and thriving population, prosperous cities and towns, lands worth for cultivation from SSOO to SI,OOO an acre and a wealth of fruit production

without a parallel in the world. Twenty years ago no one in America knew hoy to utilize water on a large scale for irrigation. A few colonies in different parts of the arid zone, a few settlers in isolated valleys, were making experiments. A decade ago 6ome 2,000,000 acres of the arid region were irrigated, and since then the progress of irrigation has been ■ march of triumph. In 1886 the area under water ditches was 5,500,000 acres and by 1891 it had increased to 17,177,843 acres, of which 7,998,000 acres were under cultivation. The difference between the area under water ditches and cultivation is due to the fact that years are required to settle the country and prepare the soil after the irrigation ditches are formed. Of the large acreage under ditch in 1891, 4.500,000 acres belonged to California and a little over 3,000,000 to Wyoming and Colorado, each. California had 3,500 artesian wells and Colorado 4,500. Some of these wells yielded 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 gallons of water daily, capable of irrigating a section of land. Judging the present by the past, says Charles H. Shinn in Popular Science Monthly, there will be from 30,000,000 to 35,000,000 acres under some irrigation system by the close of the decade and the actually cultivated area may be :lose upon 20,000,000 acres. Irrigation in California. In the matter of irrigation California has had a larger and more extensive experience than any other division of the arid belt. In Merced County is the greatest corporate irrigation enterprise in the United States. The company has expended •3,500,000 on a 50-mile canal from the Merced River, with 150 miles of lesser ditches, and Has enough water to irrigate 600,000 acres. Colonies are springing up along the line of the canal and thousands of acres have

been planted. In the Kern region private capital has done an enormous work. „Seven hundred mites of large irrigating ditches have been dug in this county, which contains more than 5,000,000 acres. Thirty large canals have beeh taken out of Kern River, the most famous of which is the Calloway, 80 feet wide on the bottom and 120 feet wide at the top. It irrigates 200 ; 000 acres through 65 laterals, of an aggregate of 15 miles. Another irrigation enterprise of Kern County is that of two San Francisco capitalists. It embraces 27 main canals, with an aggregate length of 300 miles, besides 1,100 miles of permanent laterals. It can water 600,000 acres. Twenty years ago the value of such* land was less than a dollar an acre. To-day there are hundreds of acres of alfalfa, and orchards of peaches, apricots, prunes and almonds. Cotton, sugar beets, the sugar cane of Louisiana, tobacco, corn, cassava, and a altitude of the products of the temperate and semi-tropic regions thrive there and can bo cultivated as staple crops. In other States the value, nay, necessity, of irrigation Is appreciated. In Montana, Idaho,

Kansas, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Nebraska, Washington, Ne-, vada, Oregon and the Dakotas several million acres are under irrigating ditches. In 1891 Montana had 1,250,000 acres; Idaho, 1,200,000; Kansas, 990,000; Utah, 735,000; New Iflfcxico, 700,000; Arizona, 660,000; Texas, 358,000; Nebraska, 200,000; Washington, 175,000; Nevada, 150,000; Oregon, 125,000; South Dakota, 100,000; and North Dakota, 2,500. These States have 5,486 artesian wells, making with California, Wyoming and Colorado a grand total of 13,492.

AN ALFALFA FIELD IN THE CALIFORNIAN DESERT. [Harvesting a rich crop made possible only by Irrigation.]

THE TRIUMPH OF IRRIGATION IN CALIFORNIA. [A watering ditch in the famous Kern region, where hundreds of thousands of acres have been turned by the agency of water from arid into fertile lands.]