OCR Text |
Show AGRICULTURE UNDER IRRIGATION IN BASIN OF VIRGIN RIVER. 261 range in proportion to area, the range is maintaining practically its limit because of the recent droughts. The droughts of 1894 and thereabouts were a great blow to the stock interests, man}' farmers being left by them with only enough *tock to start a new herd. Before the drought the range between Virgin River and Kanab and in the neighborhood of Kanab supported 40,000 head of cattle and laO.ooO head of sheep, but there are now not more than half that number in the entire basin. It wits therefore natural that the stringent range conditions would occasion the usual rivalry between the owners of cattle and the owners of sheep. The resulting contest for control el the ranges has not ended seriously,but this control is now being effected in those localities where the farmers are most dependent upon stock by the owners of cattle purchasing or leasing from the State all of the range lands fronting on streams or containing other supplies of stock water. Much of the range has only low hrow.se for feed, and as on such a range sheep invariably drive out cattle, the owners of cattle have been compelled in self-protection to take the steps they have. Although controlling the water of a range is an effective method of controlling the range, the agricultural interests of the basin would have been better served if the control of the water could have remained with the public, and some plan of controlling the range near the small irrigated farms in the interest of the holders of these farms worked out. Where a range is essential to the success of irrigated agriculture, as it is in some sections of Virgin Basin, there is little justice in allowing transient herds from other localities to consume the local range and curtail,-as they do in some of the Virgin River settlements, the only cash income of the irrigators. The owners of both cattle and sheep in Kane County have combined to protect themselves against transient herds by purchasing practicall}" all of the 40-acre tracts containing water in their county. The only way sheep men now have of getting into the counts is by reservoiring water on the desert from the summer rains, thus obtaining a *i'.pply which will last until the winter snows. The owners of cattle controlling the range between Kanab and Hurricane Ledge have been compelled to require that each one have in his name sutf'cient unfeneed water to supply his stock, and as the water is greatly limited, many owners of cattle are suffering. Besides the difficulties attending the use of the range by the cattle and sheep is the presence on the range between Kanab and Hurricane Lodge, and around Kanab, of some o.ooo head of wild horses, which the stockmen claim do more damage to the range than either cattle or sheep. These wild horses are degenerate stock of practical h* no commercial value, and an effort is now being made "to rid the range of the trespassers by annual wild-horse drives. LAND CONDITIONS. On the map of Virgin River Basin, given at the beginning of this report (PI. XIV), are shown in different colors the areas of irrigated land and the approved individual entries and State selections. The remainder of the basin, excepting a few small areas in the mountains too small to be shown, is in State selections not yet approved, or is unentered public land. The total irrigated area in the basin is approximately 13,700 acres, the total of approved individual entries and State selections 76,000 acres, and the |
Source |
Original book: Utah exhibits [of the] State of Arizona, complainant, v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, City of San Diego, and County of San Diego, defendants, United States of America and State of Nevada, interveners, State of New Mexico and State of Utah, parties |