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Updated: June 3, 2025
The Platte, a graded river of Nebraska with its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains, is enfeebled by the semi-arid climate of the Great Plains and surcharged with the waste brought down both by its branches in the mountains and by those whose tracks lie over the soft rocks of the plains. It is compelled to maintain a gradient of eight feet to the mile in western Nebraska.
The slope that Stewart entered upon was a magnificent monument to the ruined crags above. It was a southerly slope, and therefore semi-arid, covered with cercocarpus and yucca and some shrub that Madeline believed was manzanita. Every foot of the trail seemed to slide under Majesty. What hard ground there was could not be traveled upon, owing to the spiny covering or masses of shattered rocks.
"Things are changing very fast in this region," explained Mr. Zept, motioning to the irregular hill-dotted country, in which patches of vegetation alternated with semi-arid wastes. "See how irrigation is bringing the green into this land. Ten years ago, for fifty miles north of Calgary, we called this The Plains. It's all changing. It's all going to be farms, before long.
The total area of lime-deficient soil is large, comprising certainly much more than half of all the land east of the semi-arid belt of the United States.
The pre-emption regulations were revised for the semi-arid districts where a hundred and sixty acres was too small a unit. Sales of farm lands to colonization companies and of timber limits were continued, with occasional excessive gains to speculators, which the Opposition vigorously denounced. Yet the homesteader remained the chief figure in the opening of the West.
Timber Supply of the United States. Forest Service Department of Agriculture Circular, 116. Forestry and the Lumber Supply. Forest Service Department of Agriculture Circular, 97. How to Cultivate and Care for Forests in Semi-arid Regions. Forest Service Department of Agriculture Circular, 54. Paper-making Materials and their Conservation. Bureau of Chemistry, 41.
It set forth the practical implications of Conservation in these words: "We agree that the land should be so used that erosion and soil wash shall cease; and that there should be reclamation of arid and semi-arid regions by means of irrigation, and of swamp and overflowed regions by means of drainage; that the waters should be so conserved and used as to promote navigation, to enable the arid regions to be reclaimed by irrigation, and to develop power in the interests of the people; that the forests which regulate our rivers, support our industries, and promote the fertility and productiveness of the soil should be preserved and perpetuated; that the minerals found so abundantly beneath the surface should be so used as to prolong their utility; that the beauty, healthfulness, and habitability of our country should be preserved and increased; that sources of national wealth exist for the benefit of the people, and that monopoly thereof should not be tolerated."
To produce crops in the arid or semi-arid regions, out-of-season moisture heavy snows and rains must be conserved. There must be a way to harness it. Next to lack of moisture was the short growing season. These were the principal barriers to converting the new West into an agricultural domain. The latter problem could be solved, the farmers said.
Physically, the planet was a desert, hot and dry, and barren of vegetation excepting in two or three areas of jungle along the equator. "The planet is inhabited by numerous small unintelligent animal species which seem well-adapted to the semi-arid conditions.
Here again, as in the Cotahuasi Valley, are hundreds of ancient terraces, extending for thousands of feet up the sides of the canyon. Many of them were badly out of repair, but those near Colta were still being used for raising crops of corn, potatoes, and barley. The uncultivated spots were covered with cacti, thorn bushes, and the gnarled, stunted trees of a semi-arid region.
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