IRRIGATION OF ARID LANDS. 369 



The desert-land act was not intended to pnt snch large bodies 

 of land in the possession of so few men. But any law is apt to 

 work that way. Where the stock of the water company is held 

 by all the land-owners using, the land is often hypothecated as 

 security for the assessments, and in default of payment could only 

 fall into the company's hands. What sort of land monopoly will 

 grow up under it, the whole business of irrigation is too new to 

 foreshadow. There is a bitter feeling already against certain 

 large owners and syndicates. But it is doubtful whether the still 

 heavier enterprises of damming waters up in the caiions will ever 

 be carried out by private purses, unless those who go into them 

 are well assured of fee simple in still larger bodies of land. And 

 that, I judge, is about what far Western people mean when they 

 say they don't want the Government to dam the waters, but only 

 to " encourage private enterprise." 



The landscape effects of some of these irrigating systems are 

 quite striking; sometimes pretty and sometimes depressing. 

 Many of the main ditches are fifty feet wide. Such a stream of 

 water, or a much narrower one, must form no insignificant part 

 of the picture on the eye of the traveler. If it is straight, slug- 

 gish, green, bare, it may be a nightmare in its oppressive ugli- 

 ness. But where it winds about like a natural stream, as it often 

 does in order to keep on high ground, and is shaded by trees 

 planted hap-hazard along its banks, it is a thing of beauty. 



You drive along a lovely lane, lined on both sides by tall pop- 

 lar-trees, between fertile fields, gardens, orchards, shady groves, 

 and now and then you come to one of these artificial brooks. 

 You may have to go up hill to cross it. In fact, the sides of the 

 ditch are naturally and properly above the level, so that the water 

 will run out over the land. So you have the funny sensation of 

 crossing a creek on a hill-top, and even then driving upward to 

 get over it. The bridge is natural as life, and likewise the mill- 

 dam and the mill. A drive through the country between Han- 

 ford and Fernone is as pretty as the imagination can picture it. 

 Its beauties are wholly artificial. Ten years ago that was a 

 desert ; to-day it is ahead of the Mohawk Valley in everything 

 that goes to make a fine-looking agricultural region. Its one 

 fault as a landscape is that it is as level as a billiard-table. 



It is a disputed question whether irrigation induces disease. 

 Certain it is that the irrigated portions of the San Joaquin Valley 

 are malarious. But Mr. Nordhoff says they are less so than before 

 they were irrigated. I have talked with some hundreds of the 

 inhabitants, and they seem as a rule to think otherwise. They do 

 say, however, that there is an improvement in the general health 

 since they learned to drink deep-well water instead of the surface 

 water which seeps through from the ditches. Some neighbor- 



