Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ... the midst of productive fields, the swamps with pools of water surrounded by meadows available only for the meagre support of live stock, call attention to an evil which has been making insidious progress during past years and has now assumed such proportions that something should be done to arrest its inroad and restore lands thus injured to their former fertility. That these lands are valuable will be admitted by all without demonstration. They are valuable because they were once productive under irrigation and only require reclaiming in order to again yield most abundantly. They are also valuable because of their location. They belong to farmers who are provided with water rights sufficient for their irrigation. They are a dead loss to their owners, to say nothing of the unthrifty appearance which they give the country and the loss to the commonwealth of taxable property, for it is customary, and justly so, for the assessor to strike from his book all alkali and seeped lands which have become unproductive. THE CAUSE. The cause of this injury and wrhat should be done to prevent its increase are questions which greatly concern the farmers of Colorado and, through them, the entire state. In the report of the State Engineer for the years 1900-1901, the part of chapter VI relating to seepage measurements, by Prof. L. G. Carpenter, has a bearing upon this question; but, as might be expected, deals with loss from supply ditches and the amount of water returned to the river, with reference to their bearing upon the subject of irrigation supply alone. I take the liberty of quoting a few deductions given in that chapter: "The passage of water through the soil is very slow, so that it may take many years for the seepage of the outlying...