16 THE IEEIGA TION A GE 



ssion this time, something which will probably never happen again 

 for fifty or one hundred years. When it rains in those districts there 

 is more than enough of it. Irrigation is then utterly of no use." 



"Colorado should be the greatest agricultural state in the West, 

 says the Denver Times. In its sandy plains and valleys there is as 

 much gold as in its mountains. The only difference is in ger/ting it 

 out. For the one the plow and the harvester are used. For the 

 other the pick and drill are necessary. Colorado needs more farmers. 

 A thickly settled agricultural region builds up cities. It makes a 

 prosperous state." 



And this possibility of upbuilding and development through agri- 

 culture will apply to all the great arid west as soon as its land shall 

 have been reclaimed and made productive through the construction of 

 great storage reservoirs and the conservation of the vast volumes of 

 water which now flow uselessly to the sea. 



In his last annual report the Secretary of the Interior, referring 

 to the arid lands of the West says: "That this vast acreage, capable 

 of sustaining and comfortably supporting, under a proper system of 

 irrigation, a population of at least 50,000,000 people, should remain 

 practically a desert, is not in harmony with the progress of the age or 

 in keeping with the possibilities of the future." The federal govern- 

 ment should devote a portion of its annual river and harbor appropri- 

 ation to the building of the great storage reservoirs, the surveys for 

 which have been made by the geological survey. 



The extensive regions of northern Mexico, are, it is reported, to 

 be irrigated by canals through aid extended by the Mexican federal 

 and state governments. 



