LAND TO BE IRRIGATED. 



BY F. V. COVILLE. 



As the years roll by the country will see millions of dollars saved 

 to the farmers of the West and millions more made. The advocates 

 of irrigation for the West claim that the carrying out of their propo- 

 sition would create a vast empire where is now the Great American 

 desert. Seventy million acres of arid land is the amount estimated by 

 the geological survey as susceptible of irrigation with the present 

 surface water supply of the arid region. 



This utilization of all Western waters would increase the arable 

 area of the United States less thai* 10 per cent., and while it would 

 open up a channel of vast possibilities, I think that we are working 

 along lines which will add almost as much to the Nation's develop- 

 ment as would the storage and utilization of all her Western waters. 

 What can a work of such magnitude be? Why, the finding and intro- 

 duction of plants adapted to the hundreds of millions of acres of land 

 of the arid belt which much always remain arid, even after every 

 drop of water has been conserved by means of storage reservoirs and 

 otherwise. Although the opening up to settlement through irrigation 

 of between 70,000,000 and 100,000,000 acres of land would create 

 thousands if not millions of homes, yet there will always remain these 

 vast tracts of arid and semi-arid grazing lands, which, while useless 

 for most crops, will produce certain plants in profusion. Most of the 

 Westernllands are fertile. All they need is water; if not water then 

 some crop which will thrive on the light rainfall they receive; not 

 sufficient to keep alive ordinary crops. We are finding such crops 

 and I think we will eventually cover this arid area with plants of var- 

 ious sorts which will yield millions of tons of additional forage and 

 grain for Western flocks and herds. The Department of Agriculture 

 has explorers all over the world searching out such plants. For every 

 acre in arid America, north or south, of high or low altitude, there is 

 a counterpart in the Old World, and the Old World is full of exper- 

 ience. In Russian Turkestan, in Arabia, on the borders of the Sahara 

 the varied conditions are exactly similar to those of different parts of 

 our Western territory and in these ancient lands they have grown 

 arid-land crops for thousands of years. Every acre of the new West 

 has its double in the old East. Our men are hitting upon valuable 

 things from time to time, and when something of use is discovered, 

 the department makes it its business to see to its distribution. II 

 seems strange that even with our advanced methods of transportation 

 and our mail facilities, valuable discoveries are often buried in com- 

 munities for year. 



