49° Journal of Agrtciiltiire. [lo Aug., 1909. 



PROBLEMS IN IRRIGATIOX DEVELOPMENT.* 



Elwood Mead, C/iainiiaii. State Rivers and Water Supply Commission. 



The irrigation schemes of Northern Victoria already carried out or 

 known to be feasible will irrigate 1,000,000 acres of land. Settled as it 

 should be to secure the full benefits of irrigation this area will support 

 200,000 more people than now live on it, and if the products equal in 

 value the average returns from small holdings reported to the Commission 

 this year the annual return would be more than ^5,000,000. To grade 

 and improve this land, to build the houses, stables and fences required 

 by this area, to equip the farms and handle the products from them would 

 do more to increase trade and give added employment to labour than, 

 anything which has occurred since the discovery of gold, and it would 

 secure tO' Victoria its present relative rank among the States of the 

 Australian Commonwealth for many years to come. 



This development is, however, beset by one serious obstacle. Unless 

 it is removed irrigated agriculture in this State is likely to continue for 

 many years a shadowy illusion, seeming more important and substantial 

 the farther one is away from it. The obstacle referred to, is the attitude 

 toward irrigation of the land-owners of the areas affected. As a class, 

 they do not believe in irrigated agriculture, and they are not willing to 

 do the things which success in irrigation requires. Until this distrust and 

 dislike are overcome progress will be slow and the ultimate outcome 

 uncertain. That there are exceptions to this general rule is true ; there- 

 are enthusiastic and successful irrigators in e\erv district, and there are 

 certain districts, like Mildura and Bacchus Marsh, where confidence in 

 irrigation and enthusiasm for irrigated agriculture is the dominating senti- 

 ment. But these exceptions only prove the rule, which is, that land-owners- 

 do not like small holdings ; they object to a change from the present 

 methods of farming and they are unwilling to pay for water what it 

 costs to supplv it. This sentiment is not in any way affected by the 

 obvious and easily ascertainable fact that irrigated agriculture is paying 

 handsomely wherever it is followed on right lines. 



This opposition to irrigated agricuhure, in existing districts, is illus- 

 trated by the following statements made in a letter from a landowner in 

 the Rodnev district and printed in the A.rgus, of the 30th June : — 



The plain truth is that there is less water being used instead of more, and there 

 are fewer irrigators. Not that the land-owners are fools and cannot see where their 

 best interests lie, or not because they are too well-to-do to trouble their heads 

 over it, but because the bulk of our land is not suited for irrigation, and as we 

 are to our cost becoming aware of this fact, we are letting the water run past in 

 preference to ruining our holdings. The water is cheap enough — too cheap, in 

 fact — but the results obtained from its use, unless in small garden plots, is not such 

 as to mduce us to use it freelv. 



If this statement is true, then the State has wasted a (]uarter of a 

 million pounds on distributaries in the district. Statements of a similar 

 character have appeared in the press elsewhere. Thev are definite and 

 thev cannot but have an injurious effect on the work of the State in 

 developing new areas or in .securing .settlers for the older ones, and the 

 disquieting feature is that there does not seem to be enough local loyalty 

 in the district to cause them to be refuted, not a single land-owner in the 

 Rodnev district has seen fit to dispute this sweeping condemnation of its 



• Paper read at tlie Sevciilli Cniivcnlioii of the Victm i;in Cliainber of Aj;i-i<-ull ur.', lield at Bendi;,' ,. 

 July, 1909. 



