CONDITIONS FAVORABLE AND 



UNFAVORABLE TO 



IRRIGATION. 



BY J. ULRICH. 



(Continued from last month.) 



With the corporation, however, it is different. The opportunity 

 thus presented for investment was with it the prime consideration. It 

 was no part of its program to actually improve and farm these lands; 

 none of the individuals composing its personnel ever expected to make 

 a home thereon. In most cases they were all non-residents, whose 

 homes were not even within the limits of the arid region. The object 

 of their operations -was the acquisition of large bodies of lands and 

 valuable water franchises, which were to be sold at a profit, after the 

 development of their proposed irrigation plant, to people who might 

 desire to improve and actually farm the lands. The actual relation of 

 the real owners of these enterprises to the properties themselves is 

 usually even more remote than this. The financial interests are gen- 

 erally represented by the bondholders, who through the purchase of 

 bonds have advanced the money for the building of works. 



The stock of the corporation irrigation systems is not, as in the 

 case of the community stock organization, in the hands of the farmers 

 and actual water consumers under the system; it is held and controlled 

 by the promoters and organizers of the enterprise. Its affairs are also 

 controlled by a board of directors, who are elected by a vote of the 

 stockholders. The executive officers are the president, secretary, and 

 treasurer, but the details of the executive management usually devolve 

 upon an officer appointed by the board, who is called the manager 

 (sometimes the general manager), who lives, or should live, within 

 easy access to the works. The manager has the appointing of and di- 

 rects the operations of all the employees beneath him in rank, and is 

 in fact the local dictator of the policy and management of the concern, 



In most cases these corporations own and handle lands as well as 

 water, the land feature being frequently the most important of the 

 two. Where they own lands the latter are generally sold in connec- 

 tion with water, at a price which includes both. The land is rarely 

 sold alone, since it has no value except in connection with the water, 

 which usually can not be secured except from the irrigation company. 



Under this corporation regime water is not represented by shares 

 of stock, as it is in the community organizations, but by a " water 



