SALVATION ARMY IRRIGATORS. 



IRRIGATION ENGINEER FROM THE PUNJAB TO 

 INSPECT AMERICAN METHODS. 



The irrigation farms of the Salvation Army are attracting consid- 

 erable notice. In Colorado the Army has one farm of a thousand 

 acres and is about to add another thousand. It has another farm in 

 California and the movement generally is .looked upon as of some 

 economic importance. 



Commander Booth Tucker invited his friend E. A. Pargiter,a gov- 

 ernment irrigation engineer of the Punjab, India, to visit the irriga- 

 tion farms of the Salvation Army and Mr. Pargiter is now in this 

 country on two years' leave of absence. 



'I intend also to study irrigation in the United States for my 

 own benefit," said Mr. Pargiter in an interview at San Francisco. 

 " Methods and conditions here are quite different from in India, where 

 I have been connected with the Public Works for some fifteen years. ' r 



Mr. Pargiter upheld the Indian government in its treatment of 

 the famine question. "India "he said, "has reclaimed vast areas 

 through building permanent irrigation works for the watering of arid 

 lands which cannot grow crops without irrigation, and this has won- 

 derfully improved the condition of the people living in those districts. 

 There are now about 5,000,000 acres benefited by a system of irriga- 

 tion works. 



"Irrigation is under government control in India. This has 

 proved by far the most satisfactory method and the best for the peo- 

 ple. There have been many large private irrigation projects but the 

 government has found it necessary sooner or .later to control them for 

 the reason that investments in large irrigation enterprises do not 

 yield an immediate return on the money and private capital is not 

 willing to wait eight or ten or even fifteen years for an investment to 

 begin to pay. But the government can wait, and finally will secure 

 good interest on its money. Some of the districts return a profit to 

 the government as high as 10 and 15 percent. Rice and sugar land is 

 charged f or irrigation about $3 an acre. The charge for cotton lands 

 is $5. For wheat and barley lands $1 is the charge. 



" Irrigation can hardly solve the famine question for the reason 

 that the famines occur in regions where some years there is ample 

 rainfall for the crops. The drouth comes along generally about 

 once in ten years and while an irrigation system would avert trouble 

 in that ye.'tr, during the other nine years in would not be patronized. 

 The stricken districts have suffered a drought for three years in sue- 



