THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



11 



toward business conditions of 1893 were 

 begun. Therefore it is fair to presume 

 that the West can enlarge its population 

 to 150.000,000 without being overcrowded. 

 And that, too, with its present improved 

 acreage. 



The objection to this comprehensive 

 figuring is that Massachusetts is largely a 

 manufacturing state. That is the case 

 now but it was not the case half a century 

 ago; and half a century hence the West 

 also may be a manufacturing center. 



It is not the case in any section of the 

 West that all the immediately tillable land 



tion and lack of natural moisture, this in- 

 sures room for as many inhabitants again 

 as were estimated above. 



In other words the eighteen states of 

 the West can be filled with thirty times 

 as many people as now inhabit them, and 

 still not be overcrowded. That would 

 give them practically the same average of 

 population to the square mile as is pos- 

 sessed now by the states east of the Blue 

 Ridge'and north of the Mason and Dixon 

 lines. 



Probably no one factor causes the West 

 so many economical and social difficulties 



" HOW WK IRRIGATE." 



has been improved. Thousands of acres 

 in the coast states yet await the plow, and 

 many thousands more in the arid states 

 are under ditch but have not yet been put 

 to service. But aside from the immedi- 

 ately tillable lands there are as much as 

 250,000,000 acres that can be brought 

 under irrigation and be made thoroughly 

 productive. Estimates of the number 

 vary from 100,000,000 to 440,000,000, but ' 

 the 250,000,000 is assumed by experts as 

 a fair minimum. Allowing for all manner 

 of disadvantages connected with irriga- 



as the scattered nature of its habita- 

 tion, its vast area and its limited popu- 

 lation. This enforces upon its people and 

 upon its institutions burdens vastly out of 

 proportion to those borne in other sections 

 of the United States. Its railroad mile- 

 age, its insurance tax, its real estate and 

 farm mortgage, its cost of local govern- 

 ment, and its expense of home support 

 and local pleasure and recreation is greater 

 for the individual citizen than in the 

 eastern states. 



