634 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



lated the investment of private capital in increasing amounts, instead 

 of the prospect of Government aid exercising any retarding influence. 



In 1903 and 1904 work was begun under private enterprise on 1,093 

 ditches in the State of Colorado, and filings were made for 392 reser- 

 voirs. During the same period applications for more than 500 new 

 ditches and canals were made to. the State engineer of Wyoming. In 

 Idaho, during about a year and a half within this period, 1,285 new 

 applications for permits to use water were received, and 900 permits 

 were issued. In other States there was likewise rapid growth in the 

 demand for water and in the development of enterprises to furnish it. 



The development of irrigation thus far, it will be observed, has been 

 under private enterprise. The National Government has not irrigated 

 any land except a few acres on Indian reservations, but the Reclama- 

 tion Service has recently announced projects for the construction of 

 reservoirs with the reclamation fund which will affect about 1,131,000 

 acres. The fifteen projects announced as approved, several of which are 

 now under construction, will involve an estimated cost of $31,395,000, 

 or an average of $27.26 an acre. This average varies in different 

 cases from $18 to $35 an acre. The construction cost is to be repaid 

 to the Government in ten annual installments, without interest, by the 

 owners of the land reclaimed; and the fund is to be used over and 

 over, together with the additions to it from the sale of public lands. 

 The fund now amounts to nearly $25,000,000, the proceeds from lands 

 having accumulated since 1901. It is thus more than one-fourth as 

 much as the total construction cost of the irrigation systems given by 

 the Census bulletin up to the close of 1902. 



The development of irrigation brings with it a multitude of prob- 

 lems which increase in variety and importance as the land becomes 

 settled and the capacity of the water supply taxed to a greater extent. 

 Many of these problems lie at the very heart of practical irrigation. 

 The relations between farmers under irrigation are far closer and more 

 intimate than under the conditions of farming in the East, and the 

 community of interest is necessarily much more in evidence. One 

 man may ruin his neighbor's land by improper management of his 

 water, and the continued waste of water prevents the bringing of new 

 areas under cultivation and thus restricts settlement. 



Irrigation farming is usually intensive farming, as indicated by the 

 fact that the average size of the farms in the irrigated States is about 

 70 acres. The management of this more intensive system requires 

 superior intelligence, and affords unusual opportunities for error. To 

 a large extent the practice is based on rule-of -thumb methods developed 

 out of costly experience, and does not rest upon a scientific basis, 

 because until recently there has been relatively little investigation of 

 the strictly agricultural phases. One outcome of the studies which 



