STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 71 



increase in productions of twenty per cent; in ordinary seasons, from 

 tlairt}^ to fifty per cent; in seasons like eighteen hundred and sixty-four, 

 one hundred per cent. A crop that yields twenty bushels per acre, or 

 less, gives no profit to the farmer — all being consumed in its production. 

 Therefore, whatever is added by irrigation in such cases should be the 

 measure of value to the farmer, and must lead him to admit that his 

 profit has been wholly made b}' irrigation. The certainty" that the 

 farmers would have of making a crop every year should be a conclusive 

 argument for the construction of ditches to irrigate all lands possible." 



The letters are both lengthy, and full of valuable practical information. 

 They agree that water serves also as a valuable fertilizer of the soil, 

 bringing down, in solution, from the entire surface of the mountains and 

 high lands from which the water is collected, the fertilizing ingredients 

 annuall}* deposited b}- decaying vegetation and animals, and 3'ielding to 

 each field irrigated sufficient to keep to a high state its producing quali- 

 ties. That it may be applied with equal benefit at any time from the 

 first of November to the first of May, and when well applied in an^^ sea- 

 son, wet or dry, will insure a crop, on an average, of forty bushels of 

 wheat or barley per acre. From them we also learn that the cost of 

 irrigation is not over one dollar per acre to those who take water from 

 the companies named, and that tlie amount of land irrigated from both 

 ditches this year is six thousand five hundred acres. From these data 

 we draw the following deductions, and will endeavor to show the immense 

 importance of the subject to the productive resources of the State. 



Taking forty bushels per acre as the average production of good land 

 well irrigated, and according to the statements in the above extracts, 

 the average increase in a favorable season, like eighteen hundred and 

 sixt^^-five, is nine bushels per acre from irrigation, and in an ordinary 

 season, say like eighteen hundred and sixt3"-three, it is eleven bushels 

 and five twelfths — call it eleven and a half for our calculation ; and 

 in a very dry season, like eighteen hundred and sixty-four, when the 

 land would produce nothing without irrigation, by irrigation 3'ou secure 

 the whole forty bushels. Hence, on the six thousand five hundred acres 

 irrigated in eighteen hundred and sixt3^-five, a few farmers increased the 

 amount of their crops fift3'-eight thousand five hundred bushels; in an 

 ordinar3' season, on the same number of acres, the increase would be 

 seventy-four thousand seven hundred and fifty bushels; and in a season 

 like eighteen hundred and sixty-four, the increase would be two hundred 

 and sixty thousand bushels. 



Supposing the grain raised by those few farmers this 3'ear to have 

 been one half wheat and one half barley, though we believe it to have 

 been a larger part wheat; at the usual rates, their increased crops were 

 Avorth fort3'-nino thousand seven hundred and twenty-five dollars; from 

 which deduct the cost of irrigation, and we have foi't3'-three thousand 

 two hundred and twent3'-five dollars as the net receipts from an outlay' 

 of six thousand five hundred dolhirs. That same land, without irriga- 

 tion, produced nothing in eighteen hundred and sixty-four, and would 

 have produced nothing had it been sown to the same grain and cultivated 

 in the same manner as in eighteen hundred and sixty-five, saving the 

 water. But with the water at the same cost, the net increase to its own- 

 ers would have been four hundred and eii=i;hteen thousand one hundred 

 and ninet3" dollars at the rates grain sold for that 3"ear. 



This is not all; the qualit3" of grain raised on land well irrigated is 

 ver3" much^better than that on land not irrigated. Upon inquirj^ among 



