130 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Captain Chittenden of the Engineering 

 Department of the Government asserts 

 that there are 75,000,000 acres that might 

 be made highly profitable agricultural 

 lands at a cost of $2.00 an acre. It is 

 probable that in the near future the gov- 

 ernment will take the matter up. It cer- 

 tainly seems worth while. Kansas City 

 World. 



Ordinary business sense demands that 

 the federal government take up the work 

 of irrigation. National irrigation enter- 

 prise would be beneficial in more ways than 

 one. It would be profitable to the gov- 

 ernment because it would enhance the 

 value of government laud. It would pro- 

 vide an immense amount of work for men 

 anxious to earn fair wages. It would 

 build up a great section of the country 

 that would be a splendid market for 

 American manufacturers. Government 

 neglect of irrigation i? criminal Omaha 

 World-Herald. 



It is eminently wise and proper that the 

 national government should do its part in 

 creating proper storage reservoirs and 

 proper means for distributing water. The 

 national government should, in my juog- 

 ment, do its part, for here in the West 

 the next great stride must be made by 

 means of irrigation. Gov. Roosevelt in 

 speech at Salt Lake, Sept. 21, 19UO. 



A national system of irrigation and forest 

 protection will be a gigantic proposition, 

 and can be handled with success alone by 

 the national government. Like the deep- 

 ening of the waterway channels, the build- 

 ing of lighthouses and government locks 

 for the immediate benefit of a few, but for 

 the ultimate benefit of all, the establish- 

 ment of a system of irrigation to bring 

 under cultivation the vast arid tracts of 

 the West, is also an enterprise within the 

 peculiar province of the central govern- 

 ment.^. Paul Globe. 



It is the experience of the whole West 

 that companies that sell water rights are 



not successful; but the farmers' canal com- 

 panies, where the men who own the land 

 they irrigate also own the water system, 

 have been successful. The right to the 

 use of water for irrigation should vest in 

 the user and become appurtenant to the 

 land irrigated, the theory being that the 

 water necessary to irrigate an acre of land 

 should belong to the acre of land itself. 

 George H. Maxwell. 



The construction of storage reservoirs is 

 no longer looked upon as a scheme to loot 

 the national treasury, but as a proposition 

 which bears the same relation to the na- 

 tion as the improvement of rivers and 

 harbors, the construction of the Nicaragua 

 Canal, the building of the Pacific roads 

 and the laying of ocean cables. There is 

 no more certain method of promoting com- 

 merce, domestic and interstate, as well as 

 foreign and international, than by build- 

 ing up and promoting the industries of all 

 portions of the nation. Denver News. 



The country cannot afford to permit the 

 monopoly of the flowing streams. In 

 many western localities growers are de- 

 pendent upon those who by prior water 

 right control the water supply. It is time 

 our statesmen were listening to the vast 

 and important new issues coming up. 

 Racine (Wis.) Journal. 



The most interesting argument advanced 

 at the recent irrigation convention is that 

 the controlling of water sources for irriga- 

 tion purposes which prevent the great 

 floods which annually destroy river im- 

 provements, and that thus federal invest- 

 ment in irrigation reservoirs would be 

 federal economy. Seattle Times. 



As the scheme of irrigation like that of 

 transportation covers many states, it pro- 

 perly belongs to the federal government. 

 Here is a million square miles of territory 

 lying wholly untouched for the want of 

 moisture. When we remember the fact 

 that less than 500,000 square miles of 



