320 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



tect I he territory in the arid states from 

 destruction by drought. In either case it 

 is to preserve the resources of the nation 

 from destruction. 



The importance of the proposition to all 

 California and all arid America is beyond 

 calculation or imagination. It is the only 

 way water can be provided for the irriga- 

 tion of millions of acres at a cost suffici- 

 ently low to enable the tiller of the soil to 

 use the water and bear the burden of its 

 cost and prosper, and unless the Federal 

 government will adopt this policy millions 

 of fertile acres must remain a desert for 

 centuries, or forever. 



The time is ripe to inaugurate the pol- 

 icy by working to get an appropriation 

 through the next Congress to build the 

 reservoirs already surveyed in Colorado 

 and Wyoming, and also to survey sites 

 for new reservoirs in other states, among 

 others California, and then go on with 

 their construction. There are strong 

 reasons for the belief that the whole pro- 

 ject is perfectly feasible and can be ac- 

 complished, if the people of California and 

 the whole West will unite and actively 

 agitate the question and work for it. Cal- 

 ifornia would have strong support from 

 other western states, but ought to lead the 

 movement because she has most to gain 

 from it. 



****** 



One proposition especially deserves to 

 be pondered, which is that our present 

 laws of water are a patchwork and an im- 

 becile system of allowing water for irriga- 

 tion to be the subject of private owner- 

 ship without any reference to the owner- 

 ship of the irrigated land. The only sen- 

 sible system is that of Wyoming and Ne- 

 braska, where the right to the use of water 

 for the irrigation of land belongs not to 

 any individual, but to the land reclaimed. 

 Such a man as Elwood Mead, the state 

 engineer of Wyoming, who planned the 

 irrigation laws of Wyoming, which are the 

 model for all states to copy after, could 

 frame laws which would enable us to work 

 ut the problem in California of a state 



system, but it can only be done by recog 

 nizing the fact that water must cease to be 

 a speculative commodity, and go to the 

 land it is designed to irrigate as a perpet- 

 ual appurtenance forever. 



However much we may criticise our pres- 

 ent laws we must never forget that vested 

 rights have grown up under them and 

 whatever those rights are they must be 

 recognized and upheld. We cannot np- 

 build by tearing down. Whatever is 

 must be left as it -is, so far as legal rights 

 are concerned, but Avherever new water 

 supplies are created by storage a new and 

 sensible system can be adopted to control 

 them in the interest of the producer from 

 the soil, to whose prosperity we must look 

 for the prosperity of the whole people. " 



The policy of the construction of gov- 

 ernment irrigation works, to reclaim arid 

 lands has been often agitated, Mr. Max- 

 well says in conclusion, but that now the 

 time is ripe for it, as there are 2,000,000 

 men out of work and 100 000,000 acres of 

 land that might be reclaimed for their 

 use by irrigation, 



UTAH ENTERPRISE. 



As Utah may be looked upon as the 

 birthplace of American irrigation, it is not 

 surprising that her farmers should be the 

 ones to try original methods. The follow- 

 ing item from the Salt Lake Tribune may 

 give a useful suggestion to farmers in 

 other portions of the arid district. 



"To show what a few men without 

 means can do when they try, a few far- 

 mers who have always been short of water 

 in Sevier coun'.y to mature their crops, 

 clubbed together last spring and bought 

 out a neighbor's farm for $2000. Then 

 they went to work and built a dam at an 

 expense of $300, making the farm which 

 they purchased a reservoir. While the 

 water was high they turned a stream that 

 was running to waste into this reservoir, 

 with the result that when water ran low 

 last month, they opened a canal from this 

 reservoir, and for eighteen days ran their 

 canal Irom it with a volume sufficient fo 



