158 THE IRRIGATION AGE.. 



speculation, but upon the soundest and sanest industrialism. Neither 

 wars nor strikes nor panics may put forth a hand to stay its abundance. 

 In good times it will prosper more than in bad times, but in all times 

 it will enjoy a comfortable existence and, over a long period of years, 

 will obtain a gradual accretion of substantial wealth. 



THE SOCIAL INSTINCT AND COLONY LIFE. 



It is a grave mistake for the planners of colonies to forget the ex- 

 istence of the social instinct in human nature, or even to seek to sub- 

 ordinate it to the demands of the physical and commercial instinct. 

 Men, and especially women and children, are social animals. They 

 want neighbors, friends, and the open door to intellectual association. 

 They crave refinements and enjoyments religion and libraries, mu- 

 sical and dramatic entertainments, and even the dance. 



In irrigated lands, farms are necessarily small. Whereas our 

 Plains Region of Kansas and Nebraska were settled in quarter sec- 

 tions (160 acres) 10 acres is a common unit where irrigation prevails. 

 That means just 16 times as many neighbors, and there are few to ob- 

 ject to the ratio of 16 to 1 in this connection. But even this does not 

 tell the whole story of social possibilities in the colony life of the 

 West, It is a common thing for farmers to assemble their homes in 

 village centres, building on acre lots on the exterior of town sites and 

 so enclosing their parks and business centres, with their churches, 

 stores, and post-offices. The farms are made on adjacent outlying 

 lands. Under this plan the colony of today results in a happy com- 

 bination of the advantages of town and of country life the benefit of 

 neighborhood association with the independence which inheres in the 

 ownership of productive soil. Such a community may have ready ac- 

 cess to school, church, and store, to libraries and entertainments. It 

 may even enjoy the delights of the club house, 



The twentieth century is to see thousands of such beautiful 

 colonies grow up in the now silent valleys of the West and wax great 

 and powerful within the shadow of their everlasting mountains. Here 

 the common man will build his home and rear his institutions. In : 

 stead of great cities we shall have a succession of charming villages, 

 in which it will be difficult to observe where the town leaves off and 

 the country begins. Here Co-operation, rather than Competition, will 

 be the fundamental economic force. In these countless villages of 

 the future we shall make new centres of pure living and high think- 

 ing and shall realize our dreams of equality and fraternity as never 

 before. It is a merciful Providence that has reserved for the future 

 an empire of incalculable wealth, capable of supporting more than 

 one hundred million souls under conditions which will enable us to 

 create the crowning glorie> of Anglo-Saxon civilization. These 

 terms are not too warm and hopeful to forecast the future of that 



