172 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



farm a man must have not only good fortune but must be prepared to 

 endure privations which he would not be willing to consider at home ; 

 doing this, however, with the assurance that the reward ultimately 

 will be correspondingly gTeat. 



This awakening to the fact that- irrigation has its thorny side some- 

 times comes as a startling shock, sufficient to discourage all but the 

 most enthusiastic or persistent, and the more faint hearted seek still 

 farther for the promised land. Those who remain soon learn that 

 success must be preceded by subduing the soil, getting it into a good 

 condition of tilth, supplying the necessary nitrates and perhaps the 

 phosphates, applying water day or night, and perhaps all night, 

 wading around in the mud, or enduring the heat of the long daj^s of 

 brilliant sunshine and the accompanying dust of the arid regions, 

 the troubles with neighbors over division of water, the possible seep- 

 age followed by crop losses, or ruin from alkali. All of these look 

 very large at first to the man who has never given them thought, but 

 they gradually fade again as time goes on and experience is at- 

 tained. 



As a consequence of these conditions a considerable part of the first 

 settlers on every irrigation system sell out or relinquish their home- 

 steads and seek other fields. 



The second comer is more apt to stay. He has usually looked over 

 the field in advance with considerable care and has weighed the dis- 

 advantages more carefully than his predecessor, but sometimes he 

 in turn sells to a third comer, who may be regarded as the final 

 locator. 



The first and sometimes the second man has reaped more or less of 

 a reward for the discomforts of pioneering. He has obtained the 

 land for nothing or at very small cost, has, it is true, endured priva- 

 tions for a time, but has received an otherwise unearned increment in 

 land values, due to construction of the works by the investment of 

 capital not his own. Thus, if his land has cost him directly or indi- 

 rectly $1 or $2 an acre, he usually sells it for $20 or $30 an acre, the 

 final purchaser pajdng a reasonable amount for the land, but nearly 

 what it is worth. The purchaser approaches the undertaking on the 

 basis of a thorough appreciation of values and possibilities involved. 

 He has not rushed in as have many of the pioneers because of the 

 feeling that he was getting something for nothing, but on the con- 

 trary has carefully weighed the advantages and disadvantages and 

 has paid a fair price with the knowledge that he must get his money 

 back out of the land itself. With him it has not been a vision of 

 comfort or luxury, but a realization of hard work involving certain 

 risks, though with reasonable assurances of success. 



