5 6 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



returns of the census of 1890 show that the first cost 

 of irrigated lands, with their water rights, had been 

 $77,490,000, and that their value at the time the cen- 

 sus was taken was $296,850,000, an increase of about 

 283 per cent. 



The tendency to aggregate population in small 

 areas of irrigated lands and the tendency to intensive 

 cultivation brings agricultural life into higher eco- 

 nomic conditions than can prevail in the humid 

 region. The loneliness of farm life is done away 

 with, close neighborhood is induced and better im- 

 provements come in, and with these conditions lands 

 rise in value. 



WHAT IRRIGATION MEANS. 



The advocates for irrigation insist that the food- 

 producing power of reclaimable arid lands and of 

 pastoral lands not reclaimable will suffice to sustain 

 many millions of population, and that the prediction 

 is very reasonable that the agricultural population 

 will be far more dense within the irrigable areas of 

 the West than in the agricultural regions of the east- 

 ern three-fifths of the United States. 



Such advocates dwell with philanthropic consider- 

 ation on these features also, viz.: That irrigation 

 means better economic conditions; means small 

 farms, orchards and vineyards; more homes and 

 greater comfort for men of moderate means. " It 

 means more intelligence and knowledge applied to 

 farming, more profit from crops, more freight and 

 more commerce, because special products of higher 

 grade and better market value will be raised. It 

 means association in town life instead of isolated 

 farms ; it means the occupation of small ranches of 

 every mountain, basin and valley, and the gradual 

 but still rapid filling up of foothills and tablelands. 

 It means telephones, telegraphs, good roads and 

 swift motors ; fruit and garden growths everywhere ; 

 schools in close proximity; villages on every hand; " 

 and such general prosperity as can hardly be 

 dreamed of by those who are not familiar with 

 results of even the present infancy of irrigation in 

 America. The great fruit supplies of the United 

 States are in the future to come from irrigated areas 

 in the arid region. 



These are no fanciful predictions. There are real- 

 izations to-day, in limited regions, of the picture here 

 presented. Time will unfold results on a magnifi- 

 cent scale, and a civilization, not elsewhere in the 

 world to be exhibited in more consummate flower, 

 will, in the progress of time, distinguish the arid 

 region. 



IRRIGATION IDEAS SPREADING. 



The old-time notion that irrigation is a draw-back 

 to agriculture is disappearing. So well educated are 

 the people becoming through the wide dissemination 



of irrigation ideas by THE AGE, that important ques- 

 tions relating to this subject are being considered in 

 a great number of places and in many States. It 

 may surprise some of our readers to learn that 

 schemes of irrigation have actually been proposed in 

 New England. It is believed by some practical men 

 that land hitherto found of little value in many parts 

 of the far East may be put under profitable cultiva- 

 tion by means of irrigation. The same may be said 

 of some of the middle States, as well as of Georgia. 

 Florida, Louisiana, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. Kan- 

 sas, Nebraska and the Dakotas have quite fully 

 learned the advantages of supplementing their pre- 

 carious rainfall by systems of irrigation. That no 

 very extensive irrigation works have yet been estab- 

 lished in some of the States named above is not for 

 our present purpose important. It is merely to call 

 attention to the fact that irrigation is here regarded 

 as necessary or even desirable. So far as the need 

 of irrigation is concerned, the whole United States is 

 likely soon to be recognized as " the arid region, 1 ' for 

 it is certain that every year sees advances in the 

 direction of controlling the distribution of the rainfall 

 for the benefit of agriculture. It is but a very few 

 years since the idea of irrigating crops or orchards in 

 Florida was scouted as absurd by nearly every person 

 in the State. To-day there are pumping and distrib- 

 uting plants in that State costing thousands of dollars 

 each, and subsequent years will witness a great in- 

 crease of these money-making investments. As 

 the irrigation idea has developed, numerous experi- 

 mental borings have resulted in opening a great 

 number of valuable artesian wells in numerous places 

 where the presence of underground water supplies 

 was not suspected. Even on the deserts of California 

 and Arizona artesian water has been found at reason- 

 able depth, and regions hitherto . utterly waste and 

 barren will soon be made among the most product- 

 ive areas in the world. It is more especially, how- 

 ever, to those regions where irrigation has heretofore 

 been pronounced unnecessary, and advocates of it 

 mad men, that attention is here invited. It is cer- 

 tainly a hopeful indication of rapid progress along 

 the whole line of irrigation where the need of it is 

 recognized in the older sections and among the 

 densely populated States of the Atlantic seaboard. 

 A public sentiment thus cultivated and matured 

 must finally result in such needed legislation on the 

 part of Congress as will meet the new conditions and 

 give to agriculture throughout the Union a stimulus 

 in the direction of larger yields from smaller areas. 

 In short, when the people of the East shall see the 

 value and need of irrigation in their own regions, 

 they will aid the western men in securing a national 

 irrigation policy. 



