PULSE OF IRRIGATION. 



EDITORIAL COMMENTS. 



If these floods could be stored and re- 

 leased gradually as required for purposes 

 of irrigation, these dry and barren areas 

 might be rendered as highly productive as 

 the land now under cultivation, whose 

 products are the wonder and admiration of 

 the world. The people of this state 

 should get behind the movement to have 

 the general government adopt the motto of 

 "Save the Forests and Store the Floods," 

 and should demand of their representa- 

 tives in both houses of congress active 

 support for measures designed to put it 

 into effect. San Jose (Cal.) Mercury. 



In the nature of thing? the construction 

 and maintenance of irrigation works are 

 public functions like the building of light- 

 houses or public highways, and the former 

 can as ill be made objects of commercial 

 enterprise as the latter. There is water 

 sufficient for the irrigation of from 75,000,- 

 000 to 100,000,000 acres depending upon 

 the methods of conservation' employed. 

 Probably 10,000,000 people could find 

 homes on farms and be self supporting if 

 the water supply should be properly regu- 

 lated. A better investment was never 

 made by a government since the world 

 began. Philadelphia Record. 



The problem that will confront congress 

 is what methods and measures of legisla- 

 tion will open and develop the resources 

 of the arid region, which comprise millions 

 of acres of fertile lands that are now wastes 

 for want of fructifying waters that can be 

 utilized. Dallas News. 



The meaning of the enterprise is one 



that ought to enlist enthusiasm. It means 

 peace and prosperous homes, good citizen- 

 ship and a very appreciable addition to 

 our national wealth. It means actual ex- 

 pansion from within. It means life to a- 

 vast section that is now dead and deserted. 

 Some may feel that the enterprise is not 

 one of national concern. It is the nation's 

 business to strengthen the nation, and 

 this can be done quite as surely by devel- 

 opment from within as by extension from 

 without. Boston Transcript. 



We have an arid area in our great West 

 large enough to give every poor man in 

 the United States a comfortable little 

 home if only such lands were rendered 

 habitable and productive by irrigation. 

 Just now when the nation is taking so 

 much of "expansion," and the people have 

 seemingly endorsed the proposition that 

 we need "more territory," it ought to be 

 comparatively easy to arouse national ac- 

 tion to acquire thousands of square miles 

 of practically " new territory. " Houston 

 Post. 



Irrigation has long since passed beyond 

 the experiment stage. It has even reached 

 the point where little can be done by pri- 

 vate capital. Yet vast areas of the public 

 domain remain unclaimed in localities 

 where land would have a high value if an 

 artificial water supply were assured the 

 year round. Without storage reservoirs 

 they would be barren and useless indefi- 

 nitely, but once irrigation becomes possi- 

 ble they will be quickly settled and will 

 support a much larger population than the 

 same number of acres of land maintained 



