Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, With a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah

Description

Author: Powell, J.W. (John Wesley) (1834-1902)

Publisher: Harvard Common Press

Pub Date: 1983 (reprint edition)

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No marks, tears.  Front and rear covers starting to bow..  Smudges to bottom text block.  Edge and corner wear.

Notes: Originally published in 1878, second edition published in 1879.  This is a facsimile reprint of the 1879 edition.  In truth, most of the volume is taken up with the geology and geography of Utah (and Powell’s map of the territory was NOT reprinted in this volume, more the shame).  “First, Powell noted that in the arid West an unirrigated farm of 160 acres was incapable of supporting a homesteading family, but with water it blossomed so splendidly that a single family simply could not cope with it:  therefore, he recommended that the size of an irrigated farm be reduced to 80 acres.  Second, he pointed out that because of the nature of pasturage in the West, far more than 160 acres of grazing land–or even the 640 acres available under the Desert Land Act–were needed to feed enough cattle to support a family.  He therefore proposed that grazing land be carved into tracts of 2,560 acres, sixteen times the homestead unit.  Third, he explained that the traditional western approach to water use–simple appropriation–inevitably tended toward the monopolization of land, since whoever claimed an upstream right to water could effectively control the land for miles around and downstream..  Therefore, Powell suggested, all homestead or pasturage units offered for settlement should be vested with equal rights to water.”  (From the Introduction).  As visionary as Powell may have been, I don’t think anything in his experience would have prepared him for the worst drought in a millennium.  And here we are…