8 Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [10 Jan., 1919. 



The art of irrigation in America was revived by the Mormons who 

 settled at Salt Lake City in 1847. In the Eocky Mountain States they 

 say three things conquered the desert — irrigated lucerne, sugar beet, 

 and Brigham Young. 



The most important crops grown under irrigation are — (1) Fruit, 

 (2) lucerne, (3) sugar beet. The greater part of the irrigated fruit 

 is grown in California. It is pre-eminently the great fruit State of 

 America. The climate of California closely resembles northern Vic- 

 toria — rainfall in winter, with dry summers and clear, sunny skies. 



ISTearly 1,000,000 acres of fruit are grown in California, and much 

 of the produce is hauled over 2,000 miles by rail to market. Yet there 

 is no form of agriculture which gives such assurance of reasonable 

 profits as fruit-growing in California. 



The one great crop in the irrigated areas is lucerne. Five million 

 acres have been sown in the United States, all but 200,00i0 acres in the 

 Western portion. 



Lucerne is the great stock feed of the West for cattle, sheep, pigs and 

 poultry. 



On the whole the soils on which lucerne was grown appeared to me 

 to be more porous than those of our l^orthern irrigation settlements. In 

 the Imperial Valley, in Southern California, the soil is stiff in character, 

 and great^er care and skill is needed to get good returns. 



Sugar beet is one of America's great staple crops. Three-fourths of 

 the sugar-beet in the United States is irrigated. From the time when 

 the pioneers of Utah purchased a sugar-beet factory from France in 1852 

 and hauled it by ox waggons from St. Louis on the Mississippi to Salt 

 Lake City in the Rockies — a distance of over 1,000 miles — the industry 

 has made enormous strides. 



Last year the amount of sugar produced was 870,000 tons. Sugar 

 produced from beets by white labour has been able to compete with 

 cane sugar grown by black labour in the tropics. 



One of the largest beet sugar companies in the world, the Great 

 Western Sugar Company, erected sixteen factories in the Rocky Moun- 

 tain States. Sugar beet culture has proved very profitable, both from 

 the point of view of the farmer and from that of the Sugar Company. 



The number of growers for the Great Western has increased from 

 739 to 5,400 in fourteen years. The dividends paid by the Great 

 Western Company vary from 25 to 30 per cent, on a capital of 

 £6,000,000. 



I was greatly impressed with the sugar beet industry of America, 

 and with its possibilities in Victoria. It is unfortunate that the pioneer 

 sugar beet factory in Australia was established in a relatively dry 

 portion of Gippsland, where the summer rainfall is insufficient to enable 

 maximum crops to be grown. 



Long experience and numerous trials in the United States have 

 shown that to get profitable yields of sugar beet in America, rainfall, 

 or irrigation water, approximating 20 inches, during the growing period 

 of the crop, is essential. If irrigation facilities were provided at 

 Maffra, the yields in average and dry seasons would be equal to the 

 yields in the best years. 



The development of irrigation offers a means whereby the productioji 

 from the soil may be greatly increased. 



