Show UTAH IRRIGATION Retrospective and Prospective Our readers will be much interested in the following address delivered before be-fore the National Irrigation congress recently held in Phoenix Ariz by Hon Brigham Young which we copy entire I from the Rural Californian My experience with irrigation began I in Utah in 1S4S and I will say that if you could have looked upon me then a boy of 11 years of age with a hoe I placed in his hand and an acre and a quarter of land given to him that was I seeded down to wheat with instructions instruc-tions to irrigate and tend to you would have seen a boy without a hat and unmentionables un-mentionables wading in the mud and water seeking to find the highest points of the land on which to conduct water I that he might command the whole surface sur-face intrusted to him to irrigate And our experience extends from a condi I tion of this kind unto the great scientific scien-tific methods that have been employed of late to construct laterals to cover the land where our people resideand I I nay say in happy homes and the owners own-ers of those homes I It was a struggle for breadfor life with us in the beginning and no doubt you have had recounted to you informer in-former sessions of the Irrigation congress con-gress the terrible struggle which we waged against the elements and crickets crick-ets and grasshoppers for a living for our wives and children for it was a struggle and probably we have endured en-dured more than any other class of people in settling the arid lands of America I look back upon that time and I can remember looking into the faces of the women and children although al-though I was young and I could behold there starvationliterally starvation There was not a kernel of wheat not a kernel of corn between us and the Missouri II Mis-souri river 1000 miles of desert land which took UP the best we could do I three months to cross with ox teams and pedal extremities We footed it across the plains and drove ox teams and we were three months on the trip And if we did not produce from the soil what would feed the families of the people known as Mormons Now when you take 15000 people and bring them together we were collected from every Dart of the globe from every civilized nationand those who had an abundance put all that they I I had with those who had none j 1 comparatively nothing and the sum total was divided by the number of people that had to be fed during the coming winter I can see a union in locking back upon those times I see that there is a union there that is a pattern for all mankind and especially for the people of this great nation located lo-cated in the arid regions of America Gentlemen you will pardon me for I speaking of personal matters and about my people but to me I am only relating relat-ing to you the foundation of this country of the great cause which you so ably espouse We are here with heart and hand to further the interests I inter-ests of the irrigation of these lands which are so desolate and such a desert at present I I If we could only understand how to begin to work Men come into the country and they buy land under a canal company and instead of purchasing pur-chasing what they ought to have they expend nearly their last dollar in the reclaiming of these broad acres and for water to irrigate them when small holdings are the life of the country which we inhabit Again we skim over the surface soil and the wealth of the soil beneath is neglected A few inches of earth stirred on the surface is deemed all sufficient for us to win our livelihood and to increase our substance whereas where-as beneath the surface of the soil if it has a proper subsoil is the wealth of every farmer It is not more water that we want soMjadly today so far as my experience is concerned as a knowledge knowl-edge of how to use what we have cot Great stress is laid upon the fact of obtaining water I acknowledge it but as has been said with this question ques-tion should also be discussed How shall we manage the abundant supply that we have at fhe present I time It is wasted wasted by our farmers in Utah by the farmers of Arizona and New Mexico Throughout this arid cocstry water is wasted and the farmer gets the idea that the more water he has the larger crops he will raise It is a mistake I have heard others assert this and I endorse their sentiments It wants to be used wisely for a blessing abused is the greatest curse that can be given to man but for every blessing properly I used he thanks his God in his heart for that blessing while it is a curse to him if he abuses it So it Is with all the good things God provides We probably have a method of storing stor-ing water in these mountain states that cannot be adopted In those states and I territories farther removed from these mountain regions It is a theory that has been advanced in our country and to some extent put into practice to I lock UD the snows and the water of mountain streamsto place a lock upon them and keen them where they fall and let them down gently when wanted Mr Marshall of Texas gave it the name of cold storage when I was talking about it which is appropriate We have adopted this idea That when we go into the mountains and watch the course and the direction of the winds that Drevall in the early part of the season we find where the snow naturally natur-ally drifts on the ridges and in the draws and we erect what might be termed snow fences upon those ridges and in those places where the snow naturally drifts over the ridge of the mountain and forms an embankment or a drift upon the north side or the south side according to the direction I which the wind gives the snow and I carries it Now erect snow fences upon a ridge with rock or timber and you can probably increase that drift from f > 0 to 100 feet The early snows of whiter whi-ter become like granulated ice when they are preserved in this way It is like an iceberg and it melts slowly in the spring and adds to the stream convenient con-venient to us when we want it The snows that come later are light and when the sun strikes them in the spring they all fcome in a rush and we have the water cutting out our dams and cutting to pieces our canals and destroying the work probably of the whole previous veal taken out in a few minutes by the high waters This difficulty has been obviated to a great extent because we can lock up the snows by making these drifts much larger and aid in keeping them back and this ice melts very slowly in the spring Then the water too of these streams in the fall of the year we go Into the canyons and whenever there is a level place or a depression or where we can run those waters out we make a furrow with a plow perhaps and conduct that water out onto these I level places and allow it to freeze one I coat upon another until we have one two three or four coats of ice on these level places and in these depressions This melts lowly in the spring and thus We have husbanded the water to a great extent that is necessary for our irrigation purposes There is another point that I will take I the liberty of mentioning and that is the cultivation of the soil Wherever we have tried the experiment in Utah we have found that where we go downr 20 inches below the surface we have a J proper subsoil and we take the water in the fall and irrigate that land and soak it thoroughly not trusting to the fall rains to flood that soil and saturate < satur-ate it Irrigating it in that way we find that when we have done this we never had to irrigate in the spring to bring our crops to the surface All of you are aware of the fact that frequently fre-quently the land is so dry in the spring that in order to make the crop sprout well in the ground It is necessary to irrigate but where this system is followed fol-lowed it is perfectly certain that the land is sufficiently moist to bring up the crop I have experimented with wheat and have never irrigated the soil when I have subsoiled In the morning when I sro out 1 see what appears ap-pEars to be de vdrops moisture that has come from beneath and the land is sufficiently irrigated to bring the crop on until it shades the ground and AI 1 then it rarely requires irrigation Now it may be unimportant to you and to many others who have not a soil that is suitable to such purposes or that can be treated in this manner but to us it is an important point and we find that we raise great crops A gentleman gen-tleman who lives beside me and had a farm close to mine raised 75 bushels of wheat to the acre plump measure by adopting this system and I was only a trifle behind with 65 bushels of wheat to the acre as fine as I have ever seen in any country All because I farm it and own and cultivate it instead in-stead of spending my time looking after that portion of the water that dinot belong to mewater that somebody some-body else ought to have had on the higher and drier land that surrounds 1ti i the valley There is another system on the lowlands low-lands in our valleys We see that springs are breaking through the sur fact and coming up and they are entirely r en-tirely useless to us Springs of water j where do thev come from Go into I the mountains or rocks or wherever you are looking and you will find that there is only perhaps about twothirds I of the snow that ever drains off from the surface and comes down into the valleys What becomEs of the remainder I remain-der It percolates through the soil and runs off that way and springs out to I make our marshes and places that are f of no account whatever and hence that much water is absolutely wasted Go into the draws that you see in the mountains the dry canyonsgo into these draws and canyons and go down to bedrock and put in a dam and you will force those waters to the surface wt I In this way we will bring into cultivation j culti-vation the higher lands of Utah that are now useless I The irrigation system is in its infancy o but will say this that we are better prepared very much better prepared to do practical work than we are to I discuss it before a congresseven the National Irrigation congress These I very territories and states in the center of the continent will be the very backbone I back-bone and sinew of our great country in the developing and bringing out and sustaining of the honest poor We have I immigrated over 100000 since 1840 and placed them in good homes and made i them sole owners of those homes and r these vallevs and this people and this I congress will be great factors In fur oppressed mil I nishinpr homes for the I lions of our own land as well as those of other lands r > i |