REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE ON THE IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION OF ARID LANDS. REPORT OF COMMITTEE AND VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1890. Mr. STEWART, from the Select Committee on Irrigation and Reclama- REPORT: [To accompany S. 2104.] Before giving a detailed account of the investigations of your committee, some general observations and suggestions as to what action should be taken by the Government to enable the people to reclaim and settle upon the arid lands of the United States are submitted. Over two-fifths of the area of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, requires irrigation to insure regular crops, and in at least four-fifths of the arid region irrigation is a necessity for the production thereof. This arid region comprises between 1,200,000 and 1,300,000 square miles, being a third larger than British India and very similar to it in its general characteristics. Attention is called first to that portion of the great plains between the Canadian line and Mexico, and the foot-hills of the Rocky Mount ains and a line following where the rain-fall ceases to be sufficient to It curves both produce regular crops. This line is not a straight one. east and west, and is sometimes found about the ninety eighth meridian of west longitude, and sometimes as far west as the one hundredth meridian. This region contains about 200,000 square miles. The soil is exceedingly fertile and the climate salubrious; and in the eastern part of it, while irrigation is important, farming can be prosecuted, except in seasons of drought, without irrigation. Still for a portion of each summer a supply of water under the farmers' control would always be of great importance. The Missouri River with its numerous branches; the Platte River, also with several branches; the Arkansas, and a number of other streams of less importance, flow through these plains. To what extent these rivers and their tributaries, together with the water that may be stored in reservoirs which now runs to waste, carrying silt and increasing floods in the Lower Mississippi, may be utilized, is as yet undeter mined. It is confidently believed that, with rest raining dams to hold back the water of the numerous lakes found at the headwaters of the various tributaries of these rivers, and reservoirs constructed at other suitable points, together with the aid of the natural flow of the streams, a very large extent of country, now comparatively worthless, could be made exceedingly productive, while the floods in the Lower Mississippi would be greatly alleviated. The rain-fall on these great plains comes not in gentle showers with cloudy weather, as is the case farther east, but falls in torrents upon limited areas; sometimes in the place and sometimes in another; and |