182 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ization of the railroads of the United States is said 

 to exceed ten billion dollars; a large proportion of it 

 is represented by western properties. Every bond- 

 holder and stockholder in these railroads, whether his 

 home be in Omaha, Boston or London, is vitally in- 

 terested in the rapid progress of colonization through- 

 out Arid America. It means the salvation of their in- 

 vestments. 



Speaking of Mr. Mills, reminds us that 

 Mr. Mills' ./.I, - , , 



Big L,and this gentleman, in his capacity as land 



Sale. commissioner of the Southern Pacific 

 railroad, has recently done a notable thing for the 

 Crocker estate, for California, for a party of promi- 

 nent Chicago gentlemen and for irrigation generally, 

 by consummating one of the largest real estate trans- 

 actions on record. He has sold to a syndicate in Chi- 

 cago about 40,000 acres of irrigated land all at one 

 stroke. Not only that, but also the water plant by 

 which the lands are irrigated a plant said to have 

 cost over $2,000,000, and claimed to be capable of 



WILFORD WOODRUFF. 



President of the Mormon Church. 



watering 600,000 acres. Still further, the town site of 

 Merced and a large amount of miscellaneous prop- 

 erty, the whole aggregating several millions in value. 

 The transaction is a matter of far-reaching impor- 

 tance in several ways. To Merced and locality it 

 means a splendid impulse for development; to the 

 Southern Pacific railroad, the rapid increase of traffic 

 in a rich and promising country; to the irrigation in- 



dustry the enlistment of some of the most influential 

 men of Chicago in its support. The Merced proper- 

 ties will now become the scene of one of the grandest 

 colonization enterprises on the continent. THE AGE 

 heartily congratulates Mr. Mills upon his success in 

 this affair. 





BISHOP T. R. CUTLER, 



Manager of the Utah Sugar Company. 



The Replies The two articles recently published in 



to Major _, T 



Powell's THE IRRIGATION AGE by Major Powell, 



Articles. d ea ij n g w jth the water supply and the 

 arid public lands, have attracted wide attention and 

 much newspaper comment. The series will be com- 

 pleted by a further paper on the duty of water, to be 

 published in June or July, but we begin in this issue 

 the presentation of the criticisms upon the important 

 articles already published. In this number two gen- 

 tlemen, who are good authorities on the subject of 

 practical irrigation, enter a strong denial of Major 

 Powell's statements, so far as they relate to the use 

 of water in California and Arizona. In estimating 

 the amount of water available and the amount of 

 arid land it will reclaim, it is of the utmost impor- 

 tance to determine what is the practicable duty of a 

 miner's inch or cubic foot the common standards of 

 measurement. Major Powell presented the deduc- 

 tions of science; Mr. Fitzsimmons and Mr. Hancock 

 present the deductions of practical experience, and 

 the difference in their conclusions is very wide. In 

 the next issue THE AGE will present articles pre- 

 pared by men of reputation, who dissent from the 

 Major's statements in regard to the amount of ir- 

 rigable public lands in the several States. When 



