170 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



crop value per acre, is a large consumer as well as producer, and be- 

 comes the most valuable citizen in the stability of the commonwealth. 



The individual projects are located far apart and the engineering 

 problems connected with them are varied and many of them novel 

 and difficult. They have not been confined to any one branch of en- 

 gineering, but include not merely the ordinary surveying and prac- 

 tice of civil engineering, with planning and construction, but reach 

 out into hydraulics, to electrical development and transmission of 

 power and the use of the power in pumping water and incidentally 

 in commercial enterprises, the manufacture of cement, and of various 

 structures, large and small, together with the safe and economical 

 handling of explosives, the digging and maintaining of tunnels, and 

 innumerable mechanical operations. 



Joined witii the engineering has been the business side. This in- 

 volves not merely the expenditure of the trust fund and the getting 

 of the largest possible return for it, but also the careful accounting 

 for all expenditures in terms of value received. It has not been the 

 custom for work under Government auspices to be measured in the 

 ordinary commercial way b}^ returns. On the contrary, it has been 

 usual to state simply that so much money has been appropriated and 

 spent. Thus data are lacking for comparison of relative efficiency 

 under Government and under corporate enterprise in most compa- 

 rable operations, but in the use of the reclamation fund this side of 

 the work has been made prominent. 



The engineering and business problems have been met and suc- 

 cessfully solved. The most difficult undertaking, however, is that 

 incident to the stage of progress now being entered upon, namely, 

 the operating side which involves successful dealing with the human 

 as opposed to the physical elements. This means the tactful han- 

 dling of thousands of individuals, collecting from them in small > 

 payments the original cost of the works, they in turn deriving this 

 money from the sale of products of the soil, and at the same time 

 operating the works in such way that the best results in crop pro- 

 duction may be attained, also maintaining the structures so that ulti- 

 mately, after having been paid for, they may be turned over to the 

 landowners in the best possible condition. 



The object of the reclamation act, as stated in the law is the con- 

 struction of irrigation works for the reclamation of arid or semi- 

 arid lands in the States and Territories named in the act. But the 

 purpose behind the mere reclamation of the land is the providing of 

 opportunities for homes for an independent self-supporting citizen- 

 ship. The law is not drawn for the purpose of making men rich, 

 but for providing opportunities for citizens who have the skill, 

 energy, and thrift suflicient to make use of the opportunities for se- 



