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It lay before him, the thousand-odd acres of it, lush and green beneath the sloping, afternoon sun, an oasis in a setting of brown, baked earth and short, dry grasses which seldom felt the magic of the rains. The ranch was owned by Donald McCrae, a pioneer of the district, and it was the show place of the country. It was Exhibit A to incomers, a witness to the results of irrigation.
The desert soil, that is now utterly worthless, would become of great value; and the taxes upon the increased produce would not only cover the first outlay of the irrigation works, but would increase the revenue in the ratio proportionate to the increased surface of fertility.
Very generally, the States have created agricultural experiment stations and model farms, drainage districts in the South, a levee system on the Mississippi River, and irrigation districts in the West; artesian wells in Texas, and in several States, State dairy bureaus.
When the president of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company, who dared not refuse the request of the committee, stood before Jefferson Worth, the man behind the gray mask forced him to speak first. "I understand you wished to see me about this railroad matter, Mr. Worth." "I told the committee that you had better see me," came the answer without a trace of emotion in the colorless voice.
They here met also Mr Aipperly, a minister of the Pilgrim Mission from the Swiss Protestant Church. He was stationed at Gallabat, and, having learned blacksmith's work and other trades, he was able to make friends with the natives by assisting them to put up their irrigation wheels and other carpenter's work. Among other interesting places they visited was a Coptic church.
Is it not most wonderful that men should have attempted such operations, without the use of iron or gunpowder? Mr. Gill also mentioned to me a most interesting, and, as far as I am aware, quite unparalleled case, of a subterranean disturbance having changed the drainage of a country. Near it was the dry course of a considerable river, whence the water for irrigation had formerly been conducted.
We always told the transient Eastern visitor, when he arrived at Cheyenne and criticised the desert, that anything would grow here with irrigation; and sometimes he replied, unsympathetically, that anything could fly with wings.
Some large springs are continually overflowing with bubbles of gas, like the great well of Ghadamez. In the garden-fields of Edree are cultivated wheat and barley, the former white and of the finest quality. A good deal of grain has already been got in this year. With industry, and a few more animals to draw the water for irrigation, a great quantity of wheat might be grown in this oasis.
Much of the land, however, was tilled, it being Springtime in this far-away country; and an occasional group of trees indicated what time and irrigation may accomplish in the way of agricultural results. At every station armed soldiers were on guard.
When in the way between Kendany and Rovuma, I observed a plant here, called Mandaré, the root of which is in taste and appearance like a waxy potato; I saw it once before at the falls below the Barotsé Valley, in the middle of the continent; it had been brought there by an emigrant, who led out the water for irrigation, and it still maintained its place in the soil.
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