392 



1HE IRR1GA1ION AGE. 



Mining It w ill n t be contended by 



Development. thoge who put f orward the 



claim that the reclamation of the West 

 through irrigation will work to the detri- 

 ment' of the eastern farmer; that it would 

 benefit the farmers of New England, New 

 York or Pennsylvania, if every human 

 habitation west of the Alleghenies were 

 blotted out of existence, and every farm in 

 that great region made desolate in order to 

 remove competition. 



Those who have studied the resources 

 and possibilities of the West realize fully 

 that agriculture, as it will be worked out 

 on the irrigated lands, is but an incident 

 of the gigantic production of which the 

 West is capable, and the possibilities of 

 which are today really so little known. 

 The mineral resources of the arid region 

 are so vast, including the great produc- 

 tion of oil, which is now beginning to be 

 developed, that agriculture will be more a 

 stimulus to mining development than any- 



thing else . In the arid West, where liv- 

 ing and transportation as a rule are expen- 

 sive, only the comparatively high grade 

 ores can be profitably worked. The tre- 

 mendous mining resources of the country 

 can never be fully developed without 

 cheap food and cheap transportation, and 

 these the West will never have until it 

 has irrigation. Nothing could possibly 

 benefit the East more than the develop- 

 ment of the wealth of the Western mines. 



The evolution of the wind- 

 mill, from the huge clumsy 

 machine of the fourteenth century, or 

 from even the windmill of fifty years ago. 

 to the present improved, light, rapid 

 running but powerful form of today, has 

 been as remarkable as any feature of irri- 

 gation development, and the American 

 windmill of the present is no unimportant 

 accessory to the great irrigation systems 

 which are being year by year projected 

 and completed throughout the West. 



Windmill 

 Evolution. 



