EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XXIII. December, 1910. No 7. 



While there are no statistics available regarding the vast sums of 

 mone}^ which have been expended during the past ten j^ears in the con- 

 struction and improvement of irrigation works b}' private enterprise, 

 it is estimated that this amount would reach $300,000,000, To this 

 should be added the expenditures of the Reclamation Service, which in 

 eight years have aggregated nearly $60,000,000. 



This phenomenal activity in the organization and construction of 

 irrigation enterprises has provided immense areas of land with water 

 supplies, present and prospective, and has brought forward a new 

 phase in the settlement of the arid country. In a measure the prob- 

 lem is shifting from the purel}^ engineering side to the agricultural 

 side. At present the question of land reclamation is not so much the 

 construction of new works for additional water supplies as the wise 

 use of the land and water already available. This agricultural side 

 of irrigation was strongly emphasized by Dr. Samuel Fortier, of this 

 Office, in a paper before the last irrigation congress at Pueblo. This 

 paper served to contrast the view of reclamation by irrigation as an 

 engineering problem solely with that of an agricultural enterprise the 

 success of which involves the highest and best use of the land and 

 water by the farmers under the system. 



Notwithstanding the large number of people who have recently set- 

 tled in the West, there is still a very large area unsettled. It is esti- 

 mated by the field agents of this Office that there are at present about 

 six million acres under ditch, but unirrigated for lack of settlers. The 

 magnitude of the task involved in bringing this land under agri- 

 culture may be realized from the fact that in fifty years only about 

 double this acreage has been reclaimed. The vast expenditure of 

 money for irrigation works has created no end of new issues which 

 must be successfully met and overcome before adecpiate returns can 

 be obtained on the money invested. 



There has been a failure to estimate at their true value the uiany 

 factors which enter into the reclamation of arid lands. The coniinou 

 conception is that when the water supply is once furnished the prob- 

 lem is solved. To the majority there has seemed to be little call for 

 the exercise of high professional skill beyond the planning and build- 

 ing of an efficient plant. Doctor Fortier expressed the view, from his 



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