Water in the Magic Land
From the air, an Arizona citrus orchard appears like some great pattern of infinite design. Conserved water, plus sunshine and a 12month growing season, plus vision and intelligence on the part of many men and women, plus hard work and good soil then the desert blooms.
Heavy rains of winter have loaded the great dams of the Salt River Valley irrigation empire to overflow capacity. Mormon Flat Dam, on the Salt River, backs up a great lake to be used by farm lands in the valley below. Capacity: 57,852 acre feet.
Water-because of it men and nations have grown great and prospered and civilizations have perished. Water, a little spring of it in the dry hills because of it men have fought and died and its story has been told in blood and hatreds. Water-soil! The judicious use of water, its conservation and the use of the soil in relation to the water that comes to it that will be the yardstick generations of scholars of other civilizations will use to measure the greatness or the littleness of our civilization.
Today history records no greater success in the story of reclamation and the con-servation of water and the use of water than in this, our Empire of the West. Because of geographical location, there falls from the heavens only an average of eleven inches of rain each year. The aridity of the country in which we live here in the old West has been a problem to all peoples of this region since pre-historic days.
Conservation of water and soil is as old as Arizona's long agricultural history. Many of the practices brought to the fore in the soil and water conservation work of the past decade are based on primitive practices of Arizona populations of a thousand years ago.
Terracing, the building of step-like platforms by using rocks or brush as walls to retain earth and save water, is an agricultural technique which apparently developed in Arizona sometime before 800 A. D. Check dams, too, which plug gullies and prevent trenching of the The citrus and the palm the result of water in this magic land.
Bartlett Dam, a poem in concrete, was built to harness the Verde. All spring this dam has been overflowing. Water from Bartlett goes to the Valley of the Sun. Capacity: 182,608 acre feet.
"A Sea of Grass to Fatten Cattle: Santa Cruz County." The great agencies of Federal government, working scientifically in Arizona, have helped bring back the value of ranges through the conservation of soil and water possibilities. This great sea of grass shows what the soil in this magic land can do once given the chance.
Soil, apparently made up an important part of ancient farming practices.
On the present Navajo reservation there are many ruins near which is evidence of the use of these prehistoric soil conservation practices. In some places, soil is still being held in place by crude dams or terraces a thousand years old or older.
Along the Gila, also, early tribes of Indians who diverted water to their fields, made use of terraces and other rudimentary soil and water conservation structures between 800 and 1300 A. D.
The Hopi Indians nowadays are using terraced gardens just as did their ancestors of more than a thousand years ago.
Thus, in the semi-arid Southwest, where soil must be conserved, and water is a priceless possession, the water spreader, the check dam and bench terrace have come down through the centuries or Arizona's history.
Arizona's conservationists of today have taken those primitive practices, elaborated on them and added others made necessary by a changing world. Range land conservationists use water spreading devices and good management practices to improve ranges anu produce better livestock, while the "soil-saving dikes" on several thousand acres of farmland in the Safford valley are today's version of the soil conservation efforts which must be an integral part of farming in this semi-arid land. The irrigation farming industry, therefore, depends on water conservation and is limited by water, not land. So much has been done: there is more to do.
The Colorado River, now held by Boulder Dam, is being put to judicious use along the eastern boundaries of the state and particularly Waters that previously ran pell-mell to the high seas now drop off watersheds and come to a quiet pause behind great dams. Horse Mesa Dam is one of the system of dams built to hold back the water magic and the wild horses of power in the Salt River. Capacity: 245,138 acre feet.
"Stopping for a Drink: Scene, near Clifton." Soil and water conservation, throughout this empire of the West called Arizona, are important factors in a flourishing livestock industry. Small dirt dams built in the hilly and mountain regions of the state preserve water between rains, help combat ruinous soil erosion.
MAX KEGLEY
Stewart Mountain Dam, another unit in the system of power and water storage reservoirs on the Salt, functions as a good and valuable friend of the farmers in the Salt River Valley. Without water, without dams, Arizona would be nothing but a desert. The potentialities of this great Empire of the West haven't been touched. Capacity: 69,765 acre feet. in Yuma county. A network of dams in Central Arizona has been built to bring water to the magic land-magic desert land which in the words of one old-timer "can grow fence posts if you can get the water to it."
Several agencies of the Federal government in a thousand places in the hills and mountains and desert of our state are working with the patience of prophets to conserve water and the soil.
The Department of Agriculture, through the Soil Conservation Service, and other agencies has given guidance and assistance along these lines to hundreds of farmers and ranchers. Nearly four million acres of range and farm land in the state are now under agreement with SCS for conservation management and treatment.
When you see what has been accomplished in but a few short years, when you realize what will be accomplished in future years, then you see in the story of water in our magic land the story of the true greatness of our civilization.
Any visitor into our land this Spring will be offered travel pleasures which may not come again for many years. The sight of all the irrigation reservoirs in Arizona filled to overflowing is just as thrilling to the traveler as it is to the farmer whose economic existence depends on those harnessed floods. The sportsmen with his rod and reel or his screaming motorboat likewise sees in those stored waters years of pleasure ahead.
Nor should the traveler fail to realize the true significance of these dams, piles of stone and concrete, built in the brown hills of Arizona. They bespeak the greatness of America. They tell of American engineering, genius, of American vision and foresight, and of the American way of life.
Out of what was once a forlorn desert, arises the great city of Phoenix, Arizona-much of whose greatness, much of whose rich promise is the result of water in the magic land. The decades to come will add to the stature and importance of this city as they will add to the richness and greatness of this, our Empire in the West.
The rich frontier has vanished. The new frontiers of America are the vast expanses of land regained from the desert-land to be nourished, made fertile and productive. To save the water and the soil is a triumph for any civilization.
A creation of the American mind, the story of water in this magic land is merely a chapter in the great saga of the American people. Seeing these dams and what they have accomplished every American can say: "I am proud."...R. C.Men have built bigger dams, dams which hold more water, but in the great history of reclamation in the West, Chapter I will always be entitled Roosevelt Dam. Last summer the lake was nothing but a mud puddle: late this spring it will overflow the stone wall that contains it. Capacity: 1,398,430 acre feet. In the spring, from the melting snows come rivulets to water the desert and the valleys below the mountain ranges of our state. In Arizona water is treasured, put to work as a valuable instrument of an expanding civilization. This friendly scene is Sabino Canyon in Pima County.
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