304 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



obtained on this new land it will cost, on an average, over $20 an acre. 

 The heaviest expense Avill come at a time when there is little or no 

 income, and hence mistakes or bad management need especially to be 

 avoided. 



Professor Fortier argued that " if it is right and proper to employ 

 the best engineering talent to design and supervise irrigation struc- 

 tures, the same necessity exists to employ men of equal skill to super- 

 vise that part which belongs to the agricultural side of irrigation ; " 

 and that from this point of view " fully a thousand skilled men could 

 be profitably emploj^ed under the more recently built irrigation sys- 

 tems." These men should be familiar with both the practical and 

 scientific phases of irrigation farming, and competent to advise in the 

 work of converting a desert into a productive irrigated farm. 



This is a matter which concerns all parties interested — the canal 

 comi)anies, the communities, the States, and the Federal Government, 

 which has become a party through its reclamation work. The success 

 or failure of these settlers in developing their lands and establishing 

 comfortable and prosperous homes will mean the temporary success 

 or failure of the new communities and of the irrigation systems under 

 which they are located. '' The conversion of $5 grazing land into 

 $100 alfalfa land and $500 orchards is of vital interest to every 

 western commonwealth, and each can afford liberal appropriations to 

 help to produce such changes. Reliance must also be placed on 

 Western States and Territories-to maintain in the highest state of 

 efficiency the irrigation work of western experiment stations." 



Several of the Western States are extending various forms of as- 

 sistance to both arid and irrigation farming, aside from the strictly 

 experimental work they are doing. This work, with the assistance 

 which the National Department of Agriculture is giving it, has 

 proved extremely helpful. It does not, however, reach the individual 

 settler except in a quite restricted w^ay. The work for new settlers 

 is not confined to the irrigated West. The South is inviting immigra- 

 tion and the conditions there present special problems. 



These forms of extension work are essentially educational in char- 

 acter. As such they touch the work of the college on the one hand 

 and of the experiment station on the other, but they do not fall directly 

 within the scope of either agency, which already has its special duties. 

 The work constitutes a separate branch of effort which stands be- 

 tween the station and the college, and supplements and extends the 

 influence of both. Its duties require a special force of men who are 

 not tied down b}" experimental work or a teaching schedule. In the 

 present organization the experimental, the instructional, and the 

 extension branches each have their own special field and functions 

 which may be quite definitel}'^ defined. 



