Irrigation in the Rocky Mountain States

Excerpt from the Introduction: The primary purpose of this bulletin is to describe agricultural conditions in the Rocky Mountain region, to give the methods by which the waters of streams are appropriated, diverted, and used, and to point out some of the difficulties which may confront those to whom the whole subject is new and strange. The discussion is confined to that territory in which conditions are somewhat similar. The great diversity in conditions and methods in different parts of the arid region makes such a limitation necessary. The territory considered in this bulletin embraces particularly the States of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and Montana, and includes the country which slopes east and west from the summit of the Rocky Mountains. In these States the waters of streams are under more or less strict public control and there is also a practical uniformity in irrigation methods, while the general character of the water supply, climate, and soil is not so very dissimilar. This territory also includes all of the States which have by constitution and statute abrogated the common-law doctrine of riparian rights.