602 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



long experience, that " the agricultural side of irrigation transcends 

 all others in importance and demands the chief consideration on the 

 part of the people of the West." 



The one-sidedness of engineers in regard to this matter has led to 

 a careful study of one half of the problem and the ignoring of the 

 other half. As one result of this, large sums have been expended in 

 providing water for land of an inferior quality. Where there is such 

 an abundance of good land it seems a grave mistake to waste the 

 scanty water supply on poor soil. These matters need consideration 

 at the very first stages. Xo one who views irrigation from the agri- 

 cultural standpoint will doubt that the character of the soil on which 

 the water is to be used, the crops which can be grown, the presence 

 or absence of alkali, the formation of hardpan near the surface, and 

 the tendency to become water-logged and to require drainage, are 

 questions whose consideration is as essential to the success of an 

 irrigation enterprise as is the character of the structures used to pro- 

 vide a water supply. 



The tendency to ignore tlie agricultural side of irrigation has like- 

 wise resulted in the locating and buikling of canals on ground that 

 was too porous to retain water, and in- planning and building sys- 

 tems without adequate provision for either maintenance and opera- 

 tion or water distribution and delivery. The duty of water has also 

 been arbitrarily fixed by men who knew little of the water require- 

 ments of crops or the needs of the men who are to use the water. 

 Enterprise after enterprise is being undertaken under the Carey Act, 

 in some of which the cost of water will reach as high as $70 per acre, 

 and yet the only questions which are thoroughl}'^ considered are the 

 sale of bonds and the engineering features. Whether the farmers 

 who are induced to settle under these projects can afford to pay so 

 much for a water right seems to be too trivial a matter to be consid- 

 ered. In some cases the credulous conservative farmer is beginning 

 to lose faith in engineer's estimates regardless of any j)ossible extenu- 

 ating circumstances. He is first led to believe the price of water 

 will be only $20 an acre, then it is raised to $30, and subsequently to 

 $10, or even higher. 



Again, the providing of an irrigation supply often stops short in 

 its application to agriculture at a very vital point. The usual custom 

 in the past has been to convey water to the highest point of each 

 section of land, or to its main subdivisions, and leave to men unfa- 

 miliar with irrigation the task of planning and building distribu- 

 taries for the farms. The fact is too often overlooked that each 

 farm unit under a canal sj^stem forms an important part of the 

 whole, and that all the revenues of the system must come from the 

 irrigated farms. Men are slow to recognize that it requires as much 

 experience and ability to establish a proper system of irrigation on 

 a forty-acre farm as to build a portion of a main canal. The only 



