A history of irrigation in western Nebraska

Much of the history of Nebraska, and especially the history of western Nebraska, is a story of the search for water. The settler in western Nebraska did not find farming an easy or pleasant task and seldom did he find adequate moisture. The early settler found nature a firm and unrelenting force. The winds blew constantly and when the rains came they usually came in the form of a deluge washing the land barren and leaving it gullied with canyons. Frequently the rains were accompanied by severe hail storms - storms which pounded the crops into the earth as though a maddened giant had trampled them