<S32 Journal of the Department of Agriculture, 



their entire requirement, 300,000 barrels, at the dam site. They built 

 a wagon road 20 miles through the mountains to Government forests, 

 cut their timber, erected a saw-mill, and sawed the necessary lumber. 

 About the only inhabitants of the region were half-civilized Apache 

 Indians, who despise manual labour, yet the Government officials 

 actually induced hundreds of them to don overalls and wield the pick 

 and shovel for daily wages. In fact, the major part of the unskilled 

 labour was performed by these red men. So difficult was it to secure 

 food supplies that Government employees raised a considerable part 

 of the food needed for the men. Thus it was that power, cement, 

 timber, labour, and food were wrung from the mountains and the 

 desert, and the great dam was finished. It stores enough water to 

 irrigate the dependent lands (200,000 acres) for two years, even if no 

 rain fell in its catchment basin in that time. This project has 800 

 miles of canals; it cost over |12, 000,000 to construct; the power 

 plant now sells electric power to the value of a half-million dollars 

 a year, and a large part of the cost of the project may be paid for 

 from this income." 



The Other Side of the Picture. 



While these bold engineering achievements fill one with admira- 

 tion, it is a sad fact that although some have seen their ultimate 

 object attained, others have not, and there are instances where the 

 agricultural gain is in no way commensurate with the effort and 

 expense involved. Indeed, it is not unlikely that in some parts 

 brought under irrigation the evil of waterless land has merely given 

 way to, perhaps, the greater evils arising from the improper applica- 

 tion of water. Thus, in Utah, dry-farming methods are succeeding 

 to-day on lands lying above the furrows that led to the ruin of the 

 irrigable areas below them. 



The problems of an irrigation scheme are not all solved when 

 the reservoir and distributing system are completed and water can 

 be led over the lands. The method of applying water and the quantity 

 applied are of supreme importance. The desert soil is porous, water 

 quickly percolates through it, and in a few years an excess of ground 

 water accumulates and spreads to the lower land. This results in 

 water-logging, possibly ruining the land for crops, so that drainage 

 and pumping have to be resorted to' at great additional cost. 

 Nearly every project in the United States is presenting 

 this problem in a greater or less degi'ee, and large sums 

 of money are needed to remedy it. Thus, uncertainty re- 

 garding the final costs to be paid by the water users is deterring 

 many from taking up the lands under the U.S. Reclamation projects, 

 nearly all of which have unoccupied land. Had these projects been 

 other than Government enterprises, all, Professor Wliitbeck states, 

 would have gone into bankruptcy; the money they bring in from 

 water users would pay a fraction only of the interest charge ; the 

 majority are not paying to the Government the operating and main- 

 tenance cost, and large numbers of irrigation farmers would be ruined 

 if Government laws and contracts were rigidly enforced. Lucerne- 

 hay, it may be mentioned, is the largest crop grown under these 

 projects, occupying about 40 per cent, of the area taken up and 

 yielding 36 per cent, of the value of all crops. 



