OCR Text |
Show Irrigation From Wells When the last Federal census was taken more than half a million mil-lion acres of land was irrigated in the United States with water supplied by wells, about three-fourths three-fourths of which was pumped, the rest rising to the surface by artesian pressure. Since that time progress has been made in the recovery of underground water. At first ground-water irrigation was almost wholly confined con-fined to a few regions, such as southern California, the Pecos Valley, and the Arkansas Valley, but now nearly all parts -of the West are being prospected for ground-water supplies. Owing to the diversity in geologic geol-ogic conditions the occurrence of underground water differs greatly great-ly from place to place. Many of the desert valleys have large and valuable supplies; but others which appear no less promising to the casual observer have little or no underground water or only-water only-water that is too deep to be profitably pro-fitably pumped or too alkaline to be used for irrigation. The uncertainties un-certainties attending groundwater ground-water developments are causing great loss and suffering to thousands thou-sands of uninformed and inexperienced inex-perienced settlers and are providing pro-viding unscrupulous promoters with opportunities for misrepresentation. misrep-resentation. U. S. Press Bulletin. |