IRRIGATION IN AMERICA.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 17, 9 June 1880, Page 4

IRRIGATION IN AMERICA.

Many millions of acres of land in the Far West are almost entirely without value, unless they can be irrigated by water supplied by artificial means. The arid rigion of the United States embraces 900,000,000 acres, lying in the territories of Arizona, Dakota, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, the States of Colorado, Nevada, California, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, an A Texas, and the Indian territory. Not one per cent, of this vast area has been sold. It has been ascertained that about 200,000,000 acres are mountainous land, upon which agriculture cannot be successfully carried on, even with an abundance of water. Of the remainder, 200,000,000 acres are lava lands, covered with cinders, &c, lands without soil or vegetation, and desert plains of drifting sand. On the greater part of the 500,000,000 acres, not included above, valuable crops caa be raised by the aid of water. By spreading the water of streams over tl«e land while the crops are growingseveral thousands of acres of this area have already been reclaimed, but these methods can be applied to not more than 15,000,000 acres. There remains 485,000,000 acres, which are now used only for pasturage, and on which the vegetation is so scanty that they are almost woi'thless. It has been shown that the introduction of water is all that is needed to make these lands fertile. The Government is asked to provide for the sinking of two artesian wells, east of the Rocky Mountains, and three west of the Rocky Mountains, as an experiment towards the solution of a great problem — the reclamation of what used to be described on maps as the great American Desert.