418 IRRIGATION. 



court decisions, and through these most of the complications are being 

 satisfactorily solved. The conditions which arise where a stream 

 crosses State borders are, however, beyond the control of local legis- 

 latures and must come within the cognizance of Congress. 



The cost of irrigation has been as low as from $2 to $5 per acre, irri- 

 gated by the original or pioneer ditches. This matter has been 

 thoroughly discussed by the Eleventh and Twelfth Censuses, and the 

 average cost of bringing water to the land throughout the country is 

 shown to have been, in round numbers, $12 an acre. The average 

 annual cost of maintenance, repairs, or fees paid for conveying the 

 water has been $1.25 per acre. In case of more expensive works built 

 by corporations the cost of reclaiming the lands has ranged as high as 

 $20 an acre, or even $2">. Such land in first cost can not compete 

 with that offered for sale in the Mississippi Valley. The expensive 

 irrigated lands have the advantage of continual cropping, the ground 

 being immediately prepared for seeding as soon as one crop is removed; 

 or, in the case of alfalfa, one cutting follows another throughout the 

 year, as many as seven crops being had from an acre. 



Private enterprise has already gone nearly to its full limit. State 

 action has been confined almost wholly to attempted improvement in 

 legislation and control of the distribution of the water among the irri- 

 gators. National works are being urged by those w r ho have most thor- 

 oughly studied the subject, upon the ground that the nation alone is 

 in a position to conserve the water supply, since it controls the land 

 and the sources of most of the important streams. It is not suggested 

 that there should be an interference with vested rights, nor with the 

 distribution of water to the irrigators by State officials wherever such 

 exist. Under any suggested combination of interests in reclamation 

 the nation must construct the reservoirs, the large tunnels and diver- 

 sion works from great livers, the experimental deep or artesian wells 

 (PI. V) which demonstrate the existence of underground supplies in 

 desert areas, and other works the magnitude of which entails cost too 

 great for private enterprise or too far-reaching for State action. 



The recognition of irrigation as a great national problem was first 

 prominently given by Maj. John Wesley Powell, for more than thir- 

 teen } r ears the Director of the United States Geological Survey. 



In his explorations of the West, made shortly after the Civil War, 

 Major Powell became impressed with the magnitude of the resources 

 of the country, and the dependence of these upon water conservation 

 and the largest development of irrigation. His report on the lands of 

 the arid region, printed in 1879, is regarded as a classic on the subject. 

 The weight of his personality and the impress made upon members of 

 Congress resulted finally in the authorization, in 1888, of specific 

 examinations of the extent to which the arid lands can be reclaimed. 

 Soon after this work was begun, it was thought by some that this 



