Owing to limitation of space only a few of these interesting irrigation
projects of the United States Federal Government are here mentioned,
although each is worthy of extended description. The annual reports of
the Service are obtainable from the Superintendent of Public Documents
in Washington, and these contain full details.
In the order of their magnitude and the spectacular character of the
engineering work, the Arrowrock dam in Idaho, Elephant Butte dam in
New Mexico, Roosevelt dam in Arizona, Shoshone and Pathfinder dams in
Wyoming, and Gunnison tunnel in Colorado, take first rank. Several of
these are described at length elsewhere.
[Illustration: AN OREGON MELON PATCH]
_The Most Capacious Irrigation Reservoir_
In a region rich in thrilling reminiscence along the pathway trod
by the Conquistadores of Spain, Federal engineers recently completed
a monumental structure of masonry known as the Elephant Butte dam in
New Mexico. This enormous mass of rock and cement effectually and
permanently blocks the canyon of the Rio Grande just below the isolated
basaltic peak from which it derives its name. It rises from the depths
of the canyon 318 feet, and its crest length is 1674 feet. It owes
its place among the greatest structures of the age to the enormous
capacity of the reservoir created by it. Behind this towering monolith
the greatest floods of the turbulent Rio Grande are held in a lake
forty-five miles long and four miles wide. When full it will contain
enough water to cover 2,627,700 acres to the depth of a foot, or
sufficient to submerge the entire State of Connecticut ten inches deep.
This stored water, when needed for irrigation, is turned back into the
river and taken out at several points above and below El Paso, Texas;
180,000 acres in New Mexico, Texas and Old Mexico are being brought
into cultivation. The charm of antiquity pervades the whole region.
Here irrigation was practiced long before the first written word of
our history. Centuries before the coming of the Spanish missionaries,
a pastoral race dwelt here and cultivated this fertile valley along
the stream. A later civilization merely absorbed and extended the
primitive canals until the era of national reclamation aroused the
valley to new life and purpose. While some of the primitive methods
of agriculture, differing but slightly from those of Biblical days,
are still practiced, modern harvesting machinery is replacing the hand
sickle, the sulky plow supplants the sharpened stick, and the threshing
of grain is now performed by modern methods, and rarely by means of
goats and ponies. Splendid highways of concrete and macadam connect the
farming communities with numerous thriving towns, and the quaint groups
of adobe houses, which here and there rise in the desert, are the
last remains of vanishing races that are slowly giving way to modern
progress.
[Illustration: SIX YEARS FROM DESERT LAND