Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the MormonsRobinson, Phil
General
Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the Mormons
Robinson, Phil
Latter Day Saint churches; Utah -- Description and travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
Every stream in Utah might be a Pactolus, every pool a Bethesda. To
compass, then, this miracle-working thing, the first energies of every
settlement are directed in the union. The Church comes forward if
necessary to help, and every one contributes his labour. At first the
stream where it leaves the canyon, and debouches upon the levels of
the valley, is run off into canals to north and south and west (for
all the streams run from the eastern range), and from these, like the
legs of a centipede, minor channels run to each farmstead, and thence
again are drawn off in numberless small aqueducts to flood the fields.
The final process is simple enough, for each of the furrows by which
the water is let in upon the field is in turn dammed up at the further
end, and each surrounding patch is thus in turn submerged. But the
settlement expands, and more ground is needed. So another canal taps
the stream above the canyon mouth, the main channels again strike off,
irrigating the section above the levels already in cultivation, and
overlapping the original area at either end. And every time increasing
population demands more room, the stream is taken off higher and higher
up the canyon. The cost is often prodigious, but necessity cannot stop
to haggle over arithmetic, and the Mormon settlements therefore have
developed a system of irrigation which is certainly among the wonders
of the West.
"Logan is the chief Mormon settlement in the Cache Valley, and is
situated about eighty miles to the north of Salt Lake City. Population
rather over 4000." Such is the ordinary formula of the guide book.
But if I had to describe it in few words I should say this: "Logan is
without any parallel, even among the wonders of Western America, for
rapidity of growth, combined with solid prosperity and tranquillity.
Population rather over 4000, every man owning his own farm. Police
force, two men--partially occupied in agriculture on their own account.
N.B.--No police on Sundays, or on meeting evenings, as the force are
otherwise engaged."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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