THE IRRIGA Tl ON A GE. 309 



sufficiently amused and retires from the field, so that there are few of suf- 

 ficient experience in many enterprises to see all the snares that lie along 

 the path. It is therefore the custom to make estimates of the work for 

 what it can reasonably be done under ordinary circumstances and then 

 add fifteen per cent for contingencies. It is far safer to double the esti- 

 mates and then allow fifteen per cent off for possible good luck with con- 

 tingencies. For first, last, and all the time, you can be sure that every 

 contingency will continge. No man can f orsee them all or anything like 

 the quarter of them, especially the cost of litigation. 



Estimates too are generally based on the assumption that the cash 

 is on hand. It is very seldom that the projectors of any irrigation 

 works have the construction coin in bank. In old countries like England 

 or Prance people would rarely think of building such works unless they 

 saw the money within reach and in many of our plder states it would be 

 the same. But in our newer west it has been quite the reverse. Capital 

 has rarely done anything with a new proposition until it has been "ex- 

 ploited" by promotors. Often there are several sets of these, each 

 set thinking it has the universe by the hair. The result generally is that 

 the money had to be "rustled" piecemeal. This is certain to increase 

 the cost very much in so many ways that it is impossible to estimate it. 

 If you are behind in payments to the men, no matter how much confi- 

 dence they may have in the ultimate outcome, or how willing they may 

 be to wait, there will at once be a falling off of from thirty to fifty per 

 cent in the efficiency of their work. And until you can pay them it is 

 difficult to discharge any that may be making trouble. High interest, 

 compound interest, sacrifices of various kinds, sales of water and land 

 for less than cost and a score of other shifts are the general effect. 



Many works have been made more expensive by trying to use cheap 

 engineers. If a man uses a transit the world thinks him only a surveyor. 

 But let him set up a level which is far easier to learn and to use he is at 

 at once "Civil Engineer." The world thinks this means of course hy- 

 draulic engineer and consequently irrigation engineer. When there is 

 much railroad building there are scores of cheap levellers who are out of 

 a job as soon as it stops and most all of them swing a sign Civil Engineer. 

 Most of them are very competent levelers and they cannot be blamed if 

 any one infers from that that they know all about everything connected 

 with waterworks, They try to qualify themselves generally as fast as 

 they can because they have ambition, but having had no experience they 

 cannot plan or estimate large work as it should be done. These men are 

 often given charge of important work because they are cheap. The 

 good salaries often go to the brother-in-law or son of the big bug of the 

 concern and everything else must be cut down to 6t. 



Even where competent engineers arc in charge many of them know 

 nothing of irrigation, cultivation of the soil, or the requirements of a 

 water system. The builders know no more and seem to think all that is 

 necessary is to get so much water on so much land and the world will 



