THE IRRIGATION AGE. 119 



nsure good maintenance and operation of the works. Why cannot 

 dividends be paid out of the rentals? Because they can't and that is 

 enough. Human nature does not permit it and that settles it. 



This means that it might as well be a landowners company y Ex- 

 actly. The sooner we recognize the weakness of the irrigation com- 

 pany that attempts to run like a city water company the sooner we 

 shall get somewhere. There might be cases where it is possible to 

 make one succeed, but you had better not try it. Make the money on 

 the sale of land supplied with water, or the sale of water rights, or 

 both, and figure on turning over the stock to the land owners and let 

 ting them set the rates to suit themselves. This does not at all inter- 

 fere with keeping control of the stock for the management of the com- 

 pany until ready to turn it over. This can be done by escrow, or in 

 other ways. You want no landowners bothering you until you are 

 ready to surrender the stock or nearly so. 



Is there anything more absurd than to scour the earth for money 

 to get more water to put into the upper end of a ditch to allow a lot 

 of ignoramuses to waste at the lower end? Begin your engineering 

 at the lower end as well as at the upper. Securing water rights above 

 for the future is all right, but instead of pouring down a large stream 

 to be wasted make them economize from the start. The kindness of 

 companies in putting no restrictions on the use of water before increas- 

 ing settlement called for them has been an injury in almost every 

 case. Thousands of acres have thus been alkalied and damaged in 

 various ways, while many a good proposition has been hoodooed out 

 of several years growth by the'miserable display of alternate swamp 

 and brickyard made by the man who was allowed to begin irrigating 

 in a desert with no one to show him any of the mysteries of what is 

 is really one of the fine arts. 



Not a man should be allowed to touch desert soil with water un- 

 less he does it right. That he will do it wrongly is as certain as the 

 rising of the sun unless he has some good models to follow. The grad- 

 ing, laying out of the land and management of the water on the land 

 and the crops, generally deemed of the last importance, are really of 

 the first. A premium of twenty to forty acres with full paid up water 

 right, water rentals is and all for a period of years should be given each 

 year to the man who makes the best showing under intelligent super- 

 vision. If the proposition is what it purports to be the promoters can 

 well afford to take a hand in their own game and cultivate in the best 

 manner a piece of land themselves. If the land will produce anything 

 that is worth selling they can also afford to take part or all of the first 

 year's payment in produce grown on the land and delivered at the rail- 

 road station. In some way something should now be done to show the 

 confidence of the company in its own enterprise. And there is no bet- 

 ter way to do this than for some of the members to begin with the first 



