THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



VOL. xv . 



CHICAGO, JULY, 1901. 



NO. 10 



Covenmcnt The Geological Survey is ruak- 

 Survey. j n g surv eys of reservoir sites 



in various sections of the arid region. 

 There are many fine opportunities for 

 mountain storage of the waters now wast- 

 ed in floods, as every western man knows 

 storage which would later render barren 

 plains and valleys fertile and smiling with 

 crops and dotted with small homes. 

 Against the time when this saving of a 

 valuable commodity must be undertaken, 

 the determination of the best reservoir 

 sites should be made and the sites, with 

 their adjacent drainage basins, should be 

 reserved for such use. This work the 

 hydrographers of the Survey have been 

 engaged upon for some ten years, and 

 hundreds of great natural basins, lacking 

 only dams to be converted into lakes have 

 been surveyed and reserved by the Govern- 

 ment. This is work of the utmost im- 

 portance to the future of the west and of 

 the whole country, and it should be vigor- 

 ously prosecuted. In the west water is the 

 measure of land values. It is essential 

 that these sites and their accompanying 

 watersheds should be preserved from de- 

 forestation and misuse. 



The Increase Conservative people who have 

 in Population, thought the estimates that 

 the western half of the United States 

 would support 50,000,000 people if its irri- 

 gable lands were all reclaimed, to be ex- 

 travagant and visionery should not lose 

 sight of the fact that large centers of 

 population result from dense agricultural 



communities. It is generally admitted 

 that 75,000,000 or 100,000,000 acres of 

 highly productive land can yet be re- 

 claimed through irrigation. Probably 

 more than this acreage can eventually be 

 cultivated since new sources of under- 

 ground and other water supply are being 

 continually discovered, while at the same 

 time the utilization of water is being re- 

 duced to a much more economical basis. 



But the occupation of any great tract 

 of land by small farmers and fruit grow- 

 ers means the development of cities and 

 towns innumerable. Denver, for instance, 

 is a good-sized city, which derives its sup- 

 port largely from irrigation enterprises. 

 It is a product of irrigation, and there are 

 hundreds of other such centers, all of 

 which would develop enormously in popu- 

 lation with a comprehensive system of 

 irrigation an established fact. 



Thus the population of the arid region 

 may be destined to an increase far beyond 

 what the actual increase in western culti- 

 vatable acreage might indicate. 

 Worthless as There are millions of acres of 

 a Gift. lands in the arid regions that 



belong to the Government. That land 

 now is utterly worthless. The Govern- 

 ment has been offering to give it away for 

 the last thirty years if anybody would go 

 and live on it. No one will take it even 

 as a gift. Let the Government use its 

 credit to put up irrigation reservoirs, get 

 water onto these dry acres, and then in- 

 vite the settlers to come, provided that 



