132 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



to succeed, the farmers must have a market for their surplus 

 crops. Today there is no such market. 



You may say, that's just an imaginary situation. True, it 

 may be imaginary so far as actual places are concerned, but 

 there are several irrigation districts with just such a history. 

 Altogether there are 20 million acres of irrigation projects in 

 the United States. 19 Seven and six tenths of this acreage was 

 financed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, two" 

 thirds of the number of the projects were financed by private 

 capital and one-quarter were built on some plan similar to 

 that of the imaginary Guadalajara Conservancy District. 20 

 Of the total irrigation projects, 172 have applied to the Re 

 construction Finance Corporation for aid. 21 The usual cost 

 of the projects has been from $30 to $160 per acre of land 

 irrigated. The annual charges have amounted to an average 

 of from 75 cents to $2.50 an acre. 22 In order to enable the 

 farmers to meet the costs of these districts, the Reconstruction 

 Finance Corporation has forced the irrigation projects to reduce 

 the charges to repay debts from $43.70 an acre to about $21 an 

 acre on the average. In other words, those who put up the 

 money with which to build these irrigation districts will get 

 about 50 cents back for every dollar they lent. 



At one time people believed that irrigation of land in the 

 West was going to open up a whole new era of agricultural 

 prosperity. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the 

 Newlands Bill which gave the federal government the power 

 to build dams to provide water for irrigation and to sell this 

 irrigated land to settlers. This has been called "the only public 

 settlement activity prior to the World War." 23 



19 Report to The Secretary of the Interior by the Bureau of Reclamation, United 

 States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1937, pp. 28, 29. 



20 Letter from the Soil Conservation Service. 



21 Letter from Reconstruction Finance Corporation, August, 1938. 



22 Ibid. 



23 Parkins and Whitaker, op. cit., p. 135. 



