THE IRRIGATION AGE. 161 



farmers will for years go on in the same ruts, and after securing water 

 will not otherwise change their practices. However, there is every 

 reason to hope for the passage of such water laws in Utah as will in- 

 crease the duty of water; and, by provision for its more rational use, 

 still further increase the productiveness of the soil. 



&. By insuring the crops, and so greatly reducing the risk of 

 capital employed, a risk so great that farmers have become proverbial 

 as weather-grumblers a natural consequence of seeing their outlay 

 of labor and wages ruined by drought. This insurance by irrigation 

 opens the way for the advancement of agriculture as a business enter- 

 prise, lifting it from a precarious investment to a high position as a 

 safe business pursuit. It is safe to say that farmers, as a class, pay 

 higher rates for borrowed money, either on land or on chattel mort- 

 gages, then the great majority of other business men. One reason for 

 this is that experience has taught lenders that requests for extension 

 of time in the payment of principal and interest are more numerous 

 on the part of farmer- borrowers than with other classes of borrowers, 

 because their returns are normally subject to more vicissitudes and 

 danger than the average. While this fact may not always be apparent 

 as the reason for the higher rates charged, it is highly probable that 

 the farmer class, as borrowers in an open market, are charged rates 

 which long experience has taught are necessary to cover the risk. It 

 is not possible to believe that discrimination is caused by prejudice, 

 as it is probably true that the great majority of citizens are closely re- 

 lated by blood and friendship to the farmers of the country, and it is 

 certainly true that money seeks safe investment and will seek the 

 farm, if prompt interest payments can be depended upon. 



If the foregoing is true, it follows that the uncertainty of crops is 

 the cause of the evil, necessitating requests for extension of time in 

 meeting obligations; and the more frequent such requests are in any 

 one class of securities, the greater the harm to the credit of that class, 

 and the higher the rates charged on future loans. In short, farming 

 in the rain belt section is an uncertain business as regards returns for 

 any one year. There is no absolute safeguard against improvidence, 

 but irrigation comes very near being such a safeguard to the year-by- 

 year farmers. With a certain supply of water the great losses by 

 drought will cease, and the small capitalists will not be taking undue 

 risk when he invests money in labor on land under irrigation. 



c. By making intensive cultivation not only possible but prefer- 

 able, which it certainly is not where dependence is put upon natura 

 rains. This is because when sure of a crop the investment in more 

 labor and less land will show larger profits. In an irrigated district 

 land rises rapidly in value in consequence of its increased productive 

 power, and the advantages of forcing production are quickly seen by 

 enterprising owners. 



