220 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



quantities as to make it worthless, yet the water contracts remain in 

 force and are continual annual demands upon the farmer. The expense 

 of entering upon new government land, grubbing the brush, plowing, 

 fencing and making necessary home improvements is as much as the 

 average home seeker can stand for the first five years, hence the pay- 

 ment of cash for water rights and rentals is almost an impossibility. 

 Those having enough money to meet all the obligations to corporations 

 and at the same time build up a home are usually content to remain where 

 they are, or seek farms that have been developed. If the plans of com- 

 panies were changed so as to conform to the financial conditions of home 

 seekers their ditches would be more generally used and the income from 

 rentals and sales increase with the prosperity of farmers. Arguments 

 to the contrary are of no avail to the man who wants to make a new 

 home, because his capital consists chiefly in muscle that requires time to 

 develop cash producing fields of grain. 



Some farmers have obtained independent water supply by construct- 

 ing small ditches and appropriating a certain amount of the flow of natural 

 streams, others have reservoirs or springs in the mountain and tap them 

 when water is low, using the streams as public carriers, and taking out 

 their volume, after allowing for seepage and evaporation. In this man- 

 ner a poor man can secure sufficient water perpetually without the pay- 

 ment of money which he could not get for labor at the time he is engaged 

 in constructing his personal ditch and reservoir or developing the spring. 

 The water costs more by this method than if purchased from a company, 

 if the labor possessed any financial value, but very few men can find re- 

 munerative employment in or around the state while trying to develop a 

 farm, and after all, the basis of wealth and independence is the volume 

 of labor and. not the amount of cash, the one being in the possession of 

 every man, the other in the hands of a few. By co-operating their efforts 

 and placing labor against labor, many farmers have built home ditches 

 and keep them in repair without the expenditure of money, thus being 

 independent. 



Market gardening is practiced to some extent in the vicinity of Salt 

 Lake City and Ogden. The market is found at home and in the mining 

 towns and cities of Montana on the north, and Colorado on the east. 

 These places are reached by the Oregon Short Line arid Rio Grande 

 Western railways, the former extending through the state from north to 

 south, the latter from east to west end reaching out by different branches 

 to the more important mining and farming districts. In Davis county 

 the gardeners report the following yields per acre from irrigation: 

 Early cabbage, 12,000 heads, onions 600 bushels, potatoes 350 bushels, 

 tomatoes 2,250 bushels, carrots and parsnips 1,800 bushels, asparagus 

 5,500 pounds, sweet corn 2,420 dozen, canteloupes 1,814 dozen, watermel- 

 ons 862 dozen, celery 30,000 stalks, cucumbers 250 bushels, cauliflower 

 7,260 heads and other things in proportion. An acre of strawberries 

 produces from $500 to $1,500 worth of fruit while the gooseberry yields 



