TALKS WITH PRACTICAL IRRIGATORS. 



THAT'S THE QUESTION ! 



BY J. W. GREGORY. 



A ND what a great, complicated, intricate one it is! 

 J\ At a recent irrigation meeting an enthusiastic 

 and impatient speaker protested against all 

 talk about national and State irrigation policies, the 

 amendment of existing laws, the necessity of agree- 

 ment, cooperation, compromise among the various 

 irrigation States, etc. He broadly intimated that all 

 such discussion simply wasted time, and condensed 

 the whole problem into this proposition: 



" All we want to know is how to get the water onto 

 our land so as to irrigate ! '' 



Then, having thus summarily disposed of the whole 

 matter in tones which rung of conscious triumph, he 

 sat down and looked about over his subdued audience 

 with a flash of victory in his eyes paralleled only in 

 the case of Prof. Muddhedd, of Punkin Holler, when 

 he propounded his clinching question: 



" If d-o-r-e doant spell ' door,' what do it spell? " 



There was no need to tell the old students of the 

 irrigation question present that the speaker was still 

 in the primer class, so to speak, and had the notation 

 and numeration of the problem still to learn. They 

 all knew it instantly. It was as if a middle-aged in- 

 quirer after knowledge should protest to an assembly 

 of astronomers against all talk about algebraic form- 

 ulae, the measurement of angles and orbits or even 

 the multiplication table and wind up by declaring 

 that all he wished to know was how to measure the 

 distances to the stars so he could do it himself. 

 Recognizing the futility of attempting to impart a 

 whole common school education to such a student at 

 one sitting, the savants would probably listen to such 

 a criticism in silence and momentary wonder, as did 

 the irrigators to the speaker on the occasion re- 

 ferred to. 



EACH LOCALITY MUST ANSWER. 



The question, as stated by the gentleman, does in- 

 deed epitomize the irrigation problem. It is simply 

 a question as to how we shall put water on our land 

 to irrigate it; and if the answer involved nothing 

 more than watering Ephraim Goggles' quarter sec- 

 tion down on the Arkansaw, there would be no need 

 of holding irrigation congresses and worrying over 

 knotty inter-state and national questions. Almost all 

 irrigation localities abound in demonstrations as to 

 facts suited to local conditions, so that if a single lo- 

 cality were concerned, the answer might be some- 

 where near as simple as the question; but even the 

 single quarter section of land in the great Arkansas 

 valley, though furnished with its own pumping plants 

 and reservoirs, located within its own limits, may at 

 any time find itself embroiled in a question of prior- 

 ity of appropriation of water, and hence vitally inter- 

 ested in matters of State policy at least, and possibly, 

 in some locations, in questions of national legislation 

 and the decisions of the United States courts, i, e., 

 matters of national policy. 



THE PROBABLE COST. 



Such are the possibilities not necessarily proba- 

 bilities affecting every individual tract of irrigated 

 land. To answer the question, how to get the water 

 upon the land for irrigation purposes, applying it to 

 the whole country, will fill many volumes, written by 

 many authors and extending through many years. 

 The attempt to begin its answer has already cost 

 millions of money, the best efforts of eminent engin- 

 eers, the active service and interest of hundreds of 

 keen business men. Before it is answered fully and 

 clearly, many millions more will have been ex- 

 pended; great systems of surveys will have been ac- 

 complished; great engineering problems will have 

 been solved; State and national policies established, 

 found wanting and amended over and over, these 

 embracing a multiplicity of subsidiary issues like the 

 forestry problem, the transportation problem, etc.; 

 social, economic and even ethical questions will have 

 sprung from it, and possibly governmental changes, 

 and the far descendants of the present generation 

 will have lost all trace of the man who could ask so 

 great a question as glibly as though its answer was 

 no more than telling the price of a load of hay. 



WHAT WE BUY IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 



BY W. C. FITZSIMMONS. 



EXCEPT tropical fruits and plants, there is little 

 else consumed as food in the United States that 

 could not be easily and profitably produced in 

 our own country. The most convincing evidence of 

 the folly of American farmers raising wheat at fifty- 

 four cents a bushel wherewith to buy foreign pro- 

 ducts at comparatively high prices, is found in the 

 following figures of imports and exports as given by 

 the United States Treasury Department at Washing- 

 ton for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1894: 



IMPORTED DUTY FREE. 



Cattle, horses, sheep and all other animals, includ- Value. 



ing fowls $ 1090,087 



Chicory (easily grown in California) 108.892 



Cotton 3,010,205 



Currants (small raisins from Greece, easily produced 



in California) 774.802 



Dates, easily produced in California 387,5*5 



Goat skins 8.170008 



Other skins 7. 60S, 280 



Fixed and volatile oils 2,250.207 



Rice and seeds 1,677,438 



Silk, unmanufactured 16.234. 1S2 



Sugar and molasses 120,619,809 



Tea (experiments show that good tea can be pro- 

 duced in the United States) 14,143,107 



Fibers, all of which, or others equally good, can be 



produced in the United States 10,579,173 



ARTICLES DUTIABLE. 



Cattle, horses, sheep and all others, including poultry 1,310,379 

 Breadstuffs, including barley, wheat, corn, oats, oat- 

 meal, rye, etc 1,981.317 



Briftles KSV.M1 



jr g gs l'.'.i. :.:; 



Flax and hemp 1,576,763 



Figs (easily produced in any quantity in California. 



Florida and other States) 392,040 



190 



