Irrigation in the United StatesT. Y. Crowell, 1906 - 433 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
acres agriculture alfalfa amount of water application of water arid region Arizona artesian artesian basin basin beneath the surface bottom built California canal canyons cattle channel climate Colorado considerable construction crops cultivated Dakota depth devices distributing ditches diverted extent farm farmers feet fields flood flow flume furrows gradually gravel grazing ground head gates head waters humid regions increase irrigation Los Angeles River lower method miles miner's inch Missouri River mountains Nevada North Platte River obtained orchards outlet pipe plains plants PLATE portion possible practically public lands pumping quantity of water rainfall reclamation reservoir rock Salt San Joaquin Valley sand second-feet seepage settlers sewage shown on Pl side slope Snake River soil South Dakota southern square miles storage stream subirrigation sufficient taken tion tunnel usually Utah Utah Lake utilized valley velocity vicinity washed water supply weir windmills
Popular passages
Page 395 - The pioneer settlers on the arid public domain chose their homes along streams from which they could themselves divert the water to reclaim their holdings. Such opportunities are practically gone. There remain, however, vast areas of public land which can be made available for homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and main-line canals impracticable for private enterprise. These irrigation works should be built by the national government. The lands reclaimed by them should be reserved by the...
Page 403 - Americans, for you have done the great, the characteristic, the typical work of our American life. In making homes and carving out careers for yourselves and your children, you have built up this State; throughout our history the success of the home-maker has been but another name for the upbuilding of the nation.
Page 396 - ... manufactured articles will stimulate industrial production, while wider home markets and the trade of Asia will consume the larger food supplies and effectually prevent Western competition with Eastern agriculture. Indeed, the products of irrigation will be consumed chiefly in upbuilding local centres of mining and other industries, which would otherwise not come into existence at all.
Page vii - The commission will report especially what changes in organization, laws, regulations, and practice affecting the public lands are needed to effect the largest practicable disposition of the public lands to actual settlers who will build permanent homes upon them, and to secure in permanence the fullest and most effective use of the resources of the public lands; and it will make such other reports and recommendations as its study of these questions may suggest.
Page 393 - The western half of the United States would sustain a population greater than that of our whole country to-day if the waters that run to waste were saved and used for irrigation.
Page 394 - It is as right for the national government to make the streams and rivers of the arid region useful by engineering works for water storage as to make useful the rivers and harbors of the humid region by engineering works of another kind. The storing of the floods in reservoirs at the head waters of our rivers is but an enlargement of our present policy of river control, under which levees are built on the lower reaches of the same streams.
Page 393 - The forests are natural reservoirs. By restraining the streams in flood and replenishing them in drought they make possible the use of waters otherwise wasted. They prevent the soil from washing, and so protect the storage reservoirs from filling up with salt. Forest conservation is therefore an essential condition of water conservation.
Page 393 - Great storage works are necessary to equalize the flow of streams and to save the flood waters. Their construction has been conclusively shown to be an undertaking too vast for private effort.
Page 394 - The reclamation of the unsettled arid public lands presents a different problem. Here it is not enough to regulate the flow of streams. The object of the Government Is to dispose of the land to settlers who will build homes upon it. To accomplish this object water must be brought within their reach.
Page 396 - ... the early efforts, which must of necessity be partly experimental in character. At the very beginning the Government should make clear, beyond shadow of doubt, its intention to pursue this policy on lines of the broadest public interest. No reservoir or canal should ever be built to satisfy selfish personal or local interests; but only in accordance with the advice of trained experts, after long investigation has shown the locality where all the conditions combine to make the work most needed...