"The question of water storage and irrigating works in the arid regions of our Western country has been engrossing the attention of the people of the United States."

In 1890, General Nelson A. Miles published "Our Unwatered Empire," a 15-page article in the North American Review of March, 1890, in which he argues for greater use of water resources for irrigation, based on his observations during years of Indian warfare in the arid southwestern and great plains states.

Nelson observes that "it is impossible for one to conceive how much a country supposed to be utterly worthless can be benefited by the use of water, unless he has seen such effects.

"From land valued at less than one dollar an acre it has increased through the medium of improvements of land adjoining, and the benefit of a sure supply of water, until one acre is worth as much as one hundred would have been had not the systems of irrigation been established. No part of this country has attained such success in irrigation as this. The practice of it has spread from this part of the country to all parts of California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and other States and Territories. Without irrigation, except in certain moist lands, these beautiful valleys and lowlands would once more revert to desert wastes."

Interestingly Nelson, writes of former irrigation practices in the southwest, noting:
"The Spaniards and Mexicans in the southwestern Territories and in southern California, many years before that part of the country came into the possession of the United States, brought the much-needed source of life to their lands generally from small streams, by their system of acequias and zanjas."

About the author:

Nelson Appleton Miles (1839 –1925) was an American military general who served in the American Civil War, the American Indian Wars, and the Spanish–American War. Miles played a leading role in nearly all of the U.S. Army's campaigns against the American Indian tribes of the Great Plains. In 1874–1875, he was a field commander in the force that defeated the Kiowa, Comanche, and the Southern Cheyenne along the Red River. Between 1876 and 1877, he participated in the campaign that scoured the Northern Plains after Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's defeat at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, and forced the Lakota and their allies onto reservations.