306 THE IRR1 GA TION AGE, 



were making a failure they asked me to come down and give them some 

 lessons. They got up a meeting at the school house one night where I 

 explained the whole thing on the black-board and the next day they 

 started in anew. In a year they had things looking so well that the 

 company began to imitate them by improving some of its own land in 

 the same way. In two years everything was so fine that the company 

 became sure its land was worth as much to plant as to sell, began ex- 

 tending its area and now has a fine lemon orchard of a thousand acres, 

 probably the largest in the world . 



Suppose the settlers had struggled along for years working out 

 their own knowledge, how much would the company have done to help 

 demonstrate that the land it was so loudly trumpeting was worth any- 

 thing? Suppose the company had started in at the .beginning to get 

 some of the best irrigators in California and paid them well to make a 

 demonstration. There was at that time quite a run of land-buyers. 

 Hundreds came and looked and picked their teeth over the luncheons 

 provided at the excursions and nodded approval at everything the agents 

 said and thought the pamphlets were well written and the pictures very 

 lovely and all that. They then bowed good day, went north a hundred 

 miles and paid higher prices for land that was no better in any respect 

 but which was in an older country where people had made a beautiful 

 success of handling water. Any one ought to know by looking at such 

 land that it would do so and so, because so and so had been done a thous- 

 and times on exactly the same land elsewhere under exactly the same 

 conditions. Nevertheless the great stupid world does not reason that 

 way. It may believe in such things in the abstract when there is no 

 question of buying involved. But when laying down hard earned money 

 poor human nature, when there is no boom on, wants to see with some- 

 thing stronger than the eye of faith. And this is about the last thing 

 any company ever provides. In two companies in which I have had an 

 interest all the arguments I could bring to bear were unavailing. In the 

 very few in which I have known any thing done it was disgracefully 

 done and in some cases made matters worse than if the land had been 

 left alone. In most cases it has been mere reckless planting of trees 

 without any judgment even as to variety, but done solely to make a 

 temporary show to catch some tenderfoot and make him believe he was 

 buying a place already improved. Such a thing as an attempt to show 

 in the best manner that your game is worth taking a hand in I have not 

 yet seen or heard of. 



Why is it that men can be so foolish when they have so much in- 

 volved? One reason is that irrigation works like most all big things in 

 new countries, are rarely projected by men with the means to finish 

 them. They are almost always worked up to a certain point by promot- 

 ers. Capital comes snuffing around later on if it comes at all but it 

 generally waits to be coaxed. Now a promoter to be of much use must 

 be an enthusiast, a "rustler" and a big talker. This makes him a gold 



