THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



257 



It is a good thing to make 20,000,000 

 acres a Bailable for occupation and produc- 

 tive, but how much oetter thing it is to 

 extend favor to ten times as much. Ex- 

 pending money to build great reservoirs 

 and creating lakes, more than miniature, 

 would be killing two birds with one stone 

 it would keep water where it is most 

 needed: and from places where it is not 

 needed and at times is a curse. 



If half the sums that have been expended 

 in preventing overflow of the Mississippi 

 bottoms, had been invested in impounding 

 water for irrigation several times 20,000, 

 000 acres would by this time be covered 

 with productive fields and happy homes, 

 that are now wastes, and without occu- 

 pants. The peop!e of the arid region are 



digging into the bowels of the earth to find 

 water, and erecting pumping plants to 

 bring it to the surface, but it is not in the 

 larger part of the arid domain that water 

 can thus be obtained, while there is a 

 quantity that comes from above in snow 

 and rain that runs away, rendering little 

 or no service to man. All that is wanted 

 is for man to create the means that will 

 utilize and preserve it. The means re- 

 quired are large and the general govern- 

 ment can best afford to supply them. No 

 enterprise now before the American people 

 will so greatly promote the common well- 

 fare as to make the arid region habitable 

 and productive to the utmost practicable 

 extent. Rural Calif ornian. 



