332 



THE IRRIGAT-ON AGE. 



in Los Angeles, besides furnishing power 

 for several nearby villages. After being 

 used to generate power, the mountain 

 stream is gathered into a conduit and led 

 farther down to irrigate the hundreds of 

 orchards and groves in the San Bernardino 

 valley. 



NATIONAL IRRIGATION. 



Throughout the entire arid region the 

 plan to construct storage reservoirs, to be 

 under government control, to be used for 

 the storage of flood-waters for irrigation is 

 almost universally endorsed. There is no 

 more important question now before west- 

 ern Senators and Representatives than the 

 reclamation of the arid west through this 

 means, nor no project to which they could 

 devote themselves with more profit and 

 upon which they could combine every 

 force with more certain and general sup- 

 port from their varied constituencies. 

 Will these constituencies demand such ac- 

 tion on the part of every representative 

 sent to the national Congress? The ques- 

 tion after all always rests with the man 

 who casts the vote, if he will but keep the 

 fact in mind. 



IRRIGATION PARAGRAPHS. 



The stampede to enter Oklahoma public 

 lands, upon their opening to settlement, is 

 a matter of recent history. The govern- 

 ment has between 70,000,000 and 100,000,- 

 000 acres of arid public lands which can 

 be reclaimed through irrigation and made 

 more productive than the lands of Okla- 

 homa; and the government could sell its 

 land to settlers just as fast as it reclaimed 

 it. From the National Irri. Assn. 



L Such important works as storage reser- 

 voirs should be built as internal improve- 

 ments and permanently maintained by the 

 State or Federal government. This would 

 give absolute assurance of safety to com- 

 munities farming the lands below them. 

 Without such a guarantee of stability, the 

 inherent fear of the settler in reservoir 

 systems cannot be overcome, for the irri- 

 gator is always at the mercy of the 

 reservoir. 



It is well said, why should the arid 

 West not have its share of the great sums 

 of money which are being expended by the 

 national government for internal improve- 

 ments ? What good reason canjbe advanced 

 why the western states and territories 

 should continue to contribute to building 

 such improvements for the East and the 

 South unless the West is given a fair pro- 

 portion of expenditures for such purposes? 

 Eastern States whether seaboard or inter- 

 ior, get their proportion of river and har- 

 bor appropriations, but the arid states of 

 the West get nothing, even while they 

 contribute their share to these expenses. 



Crops evaporate 300 times their own 

 weight of growth annually. To allow the 

 growth of weeds in an irrigated field means 

 an immense loss of the precious fluid so 

 necessary to plant life. While the man 

 causing the waste gets all the water he 

 needs, still he deprives the irrigation 

 works of a portion of its capacity thereby 

 cutting off some one or causing an increase 

 in expense and perhaps a resulting loss to 

 himielf in the end. 





