Show irrigation extending utah was once tho only section in the west where irrigation was practiced and the pioneers thought its requirements a hardship but what was once regarded in that light has grown to be regarded now as a blessing irrigation makes farming a safe business venture and gradually the system is being extended to other states solely on economic grounds the news now comes that even kansas long the sufferer of periodical droughts is engaging quite extensively in irrigating enterprises the bocky mountain news says that the people of western kansas are alive to the importance of irrigation ia evidenced by the enterprise which nas been projected at great bend on the and on which work will actively begin in a few weeks by the construction of a ditch some sixteen miles long what is known as the abey enno bottoms will be turned into a vast laae six milea wide and fifteen miles lone and covering about acres it is a natural basin with a gumbo soil which will hold water like cement the purpose of course ia to fill the lake when the arkansas is at s flood every spring and use the water for irrigation vast bodies of rich land are in tho immediate vicinity and when the enterprise is completed a new era in agriculture in that section ot kansas ia confidently predicted it fileo expected that so large a body ol 01 water will have an influence on the atmosphere and tend to check the dry winds BO frequent on that portion ot the plains while there are also numerous projects of turning the shore of the lake into a summer resort stocking it with fish and giving an entire new phase to lite in that locality when that extended canal is completed there will be acres of land yielding crops each year and while the crops elsewhere in the state relying on rains will be failing as usual once in about four years the irrigated farms will not be affected the result will be that there will be a much greater stimulus given to irrigation enterprises and much more land will ere long be brought under canals as a safeguard against droughts not only will tho reservoir mentioned by the news have a great climatic influence but the irrigated farms will have a similar effect it has beau proven here in utah that irrigated valleys attract moisture and the rainfall has been perceptibly increased after their settlement and cultivation no doubt more irrigation in kansas would produce more there and lessen the dry winds that do so much damage during droughts irrigation will thereby be doubly beneficial for the water so used will moisten both the ground over which it flows and the atmos phere into which it evaporates |