The settlements are all at the
base of the mountains, where they can take advantage of the brooks that
leap down through the canons. They are, therefore, necessarily scattered
along the line of the main Wahsatch range, from the Roseaux River, which
flows into the Salt Lake from the north, to the Vegas of the Santa
Clara,--a distance of nearly four hundred miles. The labor expended in
ditching has been immense, but it has been confined wholly to tapping
the smaller streams.
By damming the Jordan in Salt Lake Valley and the Sevier in Parawan
Valley, and distributing their water over the broad bottom-lands, on
which the only vegetation now is wild sage and greasewood, the area of
arable ground might be quintupled; and any considerable increase of
population will render such an undertaking indispensable; for the narrow
strip which is fertilized by the mountain-brooks yields scarcely more
than enough to supply the present number of inhabitants. Nowhere does it
exceed two or three miles in breadth, except along the eastern shore of
Lake Utah, where it extends from the base of the mountains to the verge
of the lake.
Almost all cereals and vegetables attain the utmost perfection,
rivalling the most luxuriant productions of California.
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