34 



IRRIGATION AGE. 



mineral-laden ore of the West warrants; 

 only these minerals are locked largely in 

 the grasp of the arid belt. Water is what 

 is needed. Hills and mountains of ex- 

 treme richness lie undeveloped and deso- 

 late, surrounded by barren deserts or sage- 

 brush plains. Capitol is slow to venture 

 into such places, even with the great min- 

 eral wealth in sight. Gold is not the only 

 metal, tons of which are locked in the 

 rocky bosoms of the Western Sierras, but 

 all the family of baser metals are richly 

 represented, and the question of transpor- 

 tation enters largely into their mining. 

 Railroads will not follow mining camps 

 alone; but reclaim the arid lands of the 

 West, give to them a settled agricultural 

 population, and railroads will quickly 

 pierce the desert. And here, too will be 

 a source whence to feed the men and the 

 mules that work the mines; feed them at 

 reasonable rates. Many a torrent of great 

 volume rushes down the slopes during the 

 period of melting snows and spreads away 

 in a glistening stream across the brown 

 plain, but before a crop can be raised its 

 volume has waned and its bed becomes dry 

 sand. Yet store this, water in a mountain 

 reservoir and it would afford a perennial 

 supply, capable of irrigating land whose 

 fertility has never felt the washing, weak- 

 ening power of rain. Then, along with 

 the agricultural development would come 

 mining development. 



There are many regions where irrigation 

 has transformed the agricultural lands and 

 railroads have been quickly built, where 

 adjacent mines the necessities for man 

 and beast and transportation at hand 

 have been simultaneously developed, add- 

 ing vast sums to our mineral output which 

 otherwise might have lain dormant. 



IRRIGATION IN HAWAII. 



Interesting irrigation development is re- 

 ported from the island of Hawaii, in the 

 discovery of underground currents. Im- 

 mense subterraneum streams of the purest 

 water have been uncovered from 1,500 to 

 2,000 feet above the sea level. The water 

 will be flumed down to the sugar planta- 



tions at lower elevations, affording an 

 abundance for irrigation. 



From five subterranean streams, tapped 

 within the past few weeks, the Olaa plan- 

 tation has secured a continuous flow of 

 20, 000. 000 gallons every twenty-four hours, 

 mere than enough to irrigate the planta- 

 tion, which is the largest in the island. 

 The water has drained from the surface 

 into the subterranean beds of ancient lava. 



In the Hawaiian cane-fields under irri- 

 gation the average yield is reported as five 

 and three-quarters tons of sugar per acre, 

 and reaches in some cases as high as ten 

 tons per acre. The Louisiana sugar yield 

 is on an average only 2,800 pounds, or a 

 little over one and a half tons. 



EASTERN INTEREST. 



That the Eastern manufacturer is awak- 

 ening to the possibilities of an irrigated 

 West as a market for his products is shown 

 to some extent in the remarks of Mr. Tom 

 L. Cannon, the representative of an East- 

 ern manufacturing association at the recent 

 Trans-Mississippi congress. Mr. Gannon 

 said in part: ''If the water that goes to 

 waste in the mountains cf the arid regions 

 were stored and controlled, it would save 

 to the federal government by preventing 

 floods in the overflowed lands along the 

 Mississippi river, more than the cost of 

 construction and operation of reservoirs. 

 If arid America were made humid, the 

 crops produced would give the federal 

 governmentrevenue in the way of increase'! 

 taxation; millions of people would be em- 

 ployed; millions of homes would be estab- 

 lished, and the richest country ever known 

 to the world would be developed. 



"If steps were taken for the construc- 

 tion of storage reservoirs by the federal 

 government for the reclaimation of arid 

 America, the next fifty years would show 

 a ratio of increase in population far greater 

 in this section than during the past fifty 

 years. 



"I believe it to be the duty of every 

 man who is interested in populating the 

 western half of this hemisphere as densely 

 as the eastern half is populated, to aid in 

 the reclaimation of arid America through 

 irrigation by means of federal storage res- 

 ervoirs, which will serve the double pur- 

 pose of irrigation supplies and flood pro- 

 lectors." 



