Unless artesian irrigation is introduced extensively in the central part of both Dakotas, their future, unlike their skies, will be heavily clouded. True, the valley of the Sioux, a strip about seventy-five miles wide from the eastern border, of which Sioux Falls is the chief city, and the valley of the lower Missouri about the same extent south of this, of which Yankton is the metropolis, have never had a crop failure. Also, the Red River Valley in North Dakota, about ten thousand square miles, which contains the famous Dalrymple farm and produces the best wheat in the world, has the same unblemished record as an agricultural area. But these fertile and fortunate sections suffer from the general effect on the country of the drouths in the Jim Valley adjacent, which have been severe for four years and are increasing in severity. In the James or Jim Valley, as it is generally called, the year 1887 showed a partial crop failure, 1888 a little more, 1889 and 1890, a total loss. Of course, every country is liable to crop failure at times, and must be till man makes his own weather, which will, no doubt, some day be done to an extent now unguessed. Nor is the record of three grievous years out of ten in the agricultural history of a section so very bad, except just in the way it has happened here, with a continuous and cumulative effect. But the central Dakotans have been disheartened, and the cumulative and often, perhaps, exaggerative, reports of their condition spread over the country have checked immigration into the States for the past two years, and thus retarded the growth of the fortunate valleys. This deplorable condition lately attracted the attention of a young Yale graduate, who is editing an evening paper in Sioux Falls, and he began to collect the views of experts on the question of artesian irrigation. Mr. Tomlinson, of the _Argus Leader_, had, probably, no idea of the mass of literature with which the theme was potential, and the way the papers, even outside the State, have followed his lead must be flattering to him both as an editor and public-spirited citizen. My indebtedness to Mr. Tomlinson for some of my facts being thus cheerfully acknowledged, let me plunge _in medias res_ into the turbid waters of the irrigation problem.