IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS. 37 



about collecting data, delivering talks at gatherings of farmers, and 

 visiting the irrigators personally. 



USE OF WATER. 



The rapid extension of the irrigated area is also giving rise to a 

 number of problems in regard to the water supply. Up to a few years 

 {!go only the lands lying next to the streams, and therefore easily 

 and cheaply irrigated, Avere settled, and the Avater supply was far 

 in excess of the demands made upon it. To-day more distant and 

 le'ss accessible lands are being taken up, more costly works are nec- 

 essary, and in some sections more than the maximum water supply 

 in the most favorable years is filed on. The census returns show 

 that the cost of works has increased from an average of $8.89 per 

 acre irrigated in 1899 to an average of $15.76 per acre for the acreage 

 the enterprises were prepared to supply water to in 1910. 



Further development, except in a few cases, will be possible only 

 by the construction of still more costly diversion and storage works, 

 or by the installation of pumping plants. In but few sections of the 

 arid and semiarid region is the water supply ample to reclaim more 

 than a small part of the arable lands and the area that will ulti- 

 mately be irrigated is limited only by the possibility of getting 

 water and the cost of obtaining it. Thousands of acres can never 

 be reclaimed until the duty of water upon lands already under irri- 

 gation has been raised by reducing the losses due to seepage and 

 evaporation in bringing the water to the land and applying it, by 

 devising and introducing better and more economical methods of 

 distribution and application, and by preventing the wasting of 

 water so commonly practiced by irrigators in order to hold the en- 

 tire amount granted by State statutes passed when water was plen- 

 tiful, settlers few, and methods crude. Even to-day thousands of 

 acres are being water logged and alkalied and crop yields reduced 

 by the use of too much water, while adjoining lands of equal, or 

 Qven greater, fertility can be used only for range, owing to the lack 

 of water. 



A higher duty of Avater Avill also enable a much larger area to be 

 settled, for if larger tracts can be irrigated from the same works, 

 per acre costs of construction will be reduced and kept from becom- 

 ing exorbitant, as they are noAv tending to do. « 



Four things, besides the hearty cooperation of the irrigators, Avill 

 be necessary in bringing about a higher duty of Avater and the ex- 

 tension of the area irrigated : 



(1) The flood and out-of -season flow of streams must 1)0 conserA'ecl 

 by storage and winter irrigations. 



(2) The best methods of distributing and applying water in the 

 several irrigated regions nmst be studied and modifications Avorked 



