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Show SHORTAGE OF WATER Increase in Agriculture Necessitates Necessi-tates Use of Reservoirs. All Available Sources of Supply are Balng Employed to Render Service Serv-ice Until Mountain Streama are Used Several Tlmei. The shortage of Irrigation water in the natural streams last seaaon recalls re-calls the fact that the waters used for irrigation In earlier years were derived directly from the melting snows of the mountains to much greater extent than at the present time. The cold of the higher altitudes waa then the only cause preventing the waters falling in those regions, or formed by the melting melt-ing of the snow, from flowing rapidly from the place of their precipitation to the lower reaches of the rivers, through which they find their way to Join the oceanic waters, writes W. P. Hadden In the Denver Field and Farm. This agent la aa active now aa then but alone la Inadequate to effect a sufficiently suf-ficiently regular distribution of these waters to meet the varied and growing grow-ing requirements of agriculture, and it has been aupplemented by the uae of reservoirs to store the waters and prevent them from going to waste. Not only has the attempt been made to store the flood and other surplus waters In order to subsequently distribute dis-tribute them, that they might add to the well-being and prosperity of those living in sections further down the stream, but our agriculture has so increased in-creased that much more water la required re-quired than formerly and In order to meet thla requirement our reaervolr systems bave constantly grown. All available aourcea of water are rapidly being made to render service, until the waters of the mountains are taken out of the streams and returned several sev-eral tlmea before they are finally discharged dis-charged Into the bigger atreama. We may yet learn to further increaae the duty of water, but If we do we will not lessen the questions relative to the cbangea produced and suffered by these watera used for the purposes of irrigation. We will on the contrary Intensify them and probably find that new questions will be raised. It la well known but still more generally gen-erally accepted aa a fact that the waters wa-ters of rivers rising In high mountains where there Is little Boll, scanty vegetation vege-tation and no human beings to pollute pol-lute them, are comparatively pure, many of them very pure Indeed. Thla is the raae with the waters of our mountain atreama and Is not a fancy arising from the notlona which we associate as-sociate with the mountains and their javcluslon. The rocky face which their surface so generally presents does not wholly withstand the attack, gentle though It seem, of the falling rain or melting snow. The rocks ylold little by little. It la true, but the water is never able to enrich itself greatly In mineral matter at their expense. The work done by the waters in a year, a month, or even in a week, when meaa ured in the aggregate la surprisingly large, but no t,-tven quantity of thla water, a gallon or ao, carries more than an Infinitesimal part of the product pro-duct Thla water Is usually colorlesa and free from organic matter because we bave no accumulation of decaying organic or-ganic matter such aa peat, etc., to contaminate it Where the aurface Is covered with Boll there is little difference differ-ence between the soil and the rocks on which the Boll rests. I do not know whether the changes which take place In thla aoll proceed more rapidly than In the rocks proper or not; it is presumable pre-sumable that they do, but they are essentially es-sentially of the same kind and thla la true throughout the mountain region. These waters Buffer little change so long as they continue to flow over Ihe rocky beds which they bave cut for themselves In the flanks of the mountains, or bo long as they move through the soils which are little more than the pulverized rock on which they lie. Thla however is no longer true when they Issue from the mountains and enter the plains. |
