President Wilford Woodruff addressed the Irrigation Congress, September 16th, 1891, as follows:
"Gentlemen of the Irrigation Congress: I feel myself very thankful that I have lived in the flesh long enough in this Territory to behold the faces of such a congregation of gentlemen as I see here today. It is not my purpose to occupy your time or attention in arguing, or talking, or conversing particularly upon the subjects, or at least those principles for which you have assembled; but what I will say will be a few words concerning our arrival here, and upon the experience in irrigation. Fifty-one years ago, the 24th of last July, I entered this Valley with one hundred and forty-three emigrants, or in other words, pioneers. We were led by President Young. This country, upon our arrival, was called the Great American Desert, and certainly, as far as we could see, it did not discredit its name in the least. There was no mark of the Anglo-Saxon race, no mark of the white man—everything was barren, dry, and desolate.
"We pitched our camp a little distance to the southeast from here about 11 o'clock in the day. We had a desire to try the soil, to know what it would produce. Of course all this company—nearly the whole of us—were born and raised in the New England States, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut—had no experience in irrigation. We pitched our camp, put some teams on to our ploughs (we brought our ploughs with us), and undertook to plough the earth, but we found neither wood nor iron was strong enough to make furrows here in this soil. It was like stone. We had to turn water on it. When we came to put our teams upon the ground again they sank down to their bellies in mud. We had to wait until the land dried enough to hold up our teams. We put in our crops and we stayed here one month. During that time President Young laid out this city, as you see it today, in the midst of sagebrush, with not a house within a hundred miles of us. We built a fort around ten acres, three sides of adobe, walls eighteen feet high, and one side with logs out of the canyon. We then returned to the Missouri and some two thousand men came later. President Cannon here was one of the company that came in after us.
"Now what I wish to say is this: You gentlemen come here today; you see the city, you go through the country. Here are a thousand miles, I might say, through these mountains, filled with cities, towns, villages, gardens, and orchards, and the produce of the earth that sustains the people. Without this water, this irrigation for which you have met here today, this country would be as barren as it was in 1847, as we found it. Irrigation is what you have met to discuss. Whatever you decide upon in this matter, and unite upon, will, I am sure, prove a great blessing, not only to Utah, but to every state and Territory where these arid lands are found. We have had to learn by experience, and all that we have obtained in these mountains has been by irrigation. There are portions yet which have not been irrigated, and as one gentleman said here, if you can make two drops of water where there was one, or two spears of grass where there was one, you are a benefactor to mankind. I say, God bless you in your deliberations." (Applause.)
On the 19th of October, 1891, President Woodruff was cited before the Master and Chancery to testify to the scope of the Manifesto in the Escheat cases. The question there involved was the subject of unlawful cohabitation. He had issued the Manifesto and was therefore best qualified to interpret the meaning which it had to his mind, or which was conveyed by his language.
In November he recorded a visit to Utah of Mr. Norton, a member of the British Parliament. He speaks of Mr. Norton's interview with him as a pleasant conversation. On the last day of that month he moved the Church office from the Gardo House to the old President's Office, across the road north. This was done to save the rent which the Church was obliged to pay the government for the use of its own property.
During that year he said he traveled 3,570 miles, attended 22 conferences, signed 3,875 recommends, wrote 303 letters, and received 2,045.