VALUE OF IRRIGATED LAND. 



PROF. ELWOOD MEAD TESTIFIES ABOUT IT BE- 

 FORE THE UNITED STATES INDUSTRIAL 

 COMMISSION. 



The following is the testimony of Prof. Elwood Mead, irrigation 

 expert of the Department of Agriculture, before the United States 

 Industrial commission, as to the value of irrigated land. 



" The value of irrigated land is governed by nearness to markets, 

 by the climate which governs the kinds of production, and the dis- 

 tance and cost of railway transportation to the great markets of the 

 world. In southern California and around Phoenix, Ariz., where you 

 can raise citrus fruits and other high priced products, irrigated land 

 reaches a value as great as is found anywhere in this country, or per- 

 haps in the world; there lands having no improvements except the 

 orange orchards, have sold as high as $1800 an acre and perhaps 

 higher but I have seen lands that sold for that price in southern 

 California and water has a corresponding value. Water rentals 

 reach to figures that would be impossible elsewhere in those sections. 

 I know of instances where water rents for $45 an inch a year, and 

 where- the rights to it reach as high as $1000 an inch. Now, when you 

 come to the northern part of that arid region, the portion that com- 

 petes with the agricultural districts east of the Rocky mountains, 

 there you get into cheaper water supplies and cheaper lands. 



"Throughout the greater part of the arid region it will always be 

 largely devoted to the growing of live stock and to gardens to supply 

 the mines and the manufacturing and commercial centers of the re- 

 gion. After you have satisfied your local market then you have not 

 anything but the furnishing of the winter supply for live stock as a 

 basis for any large development. The greatest industry throughout 

 the greater part of the arid region is live stock, and that today is 

 largely based on the use of the remaining public lands and the private 

 lands that have passed out of the hands of the government or the rail- 

 roads as a grazing ground. Formerly it was the practice to turn 

 cattle and sheep loose on those grazing lands and let them go from 

 youth to old age without ever having any care or shelter simply 

 turning them loose winter and summer. They earn their subsistence 

 off the open range. But that is now giving away to the practice of 

 feeding in winter. That is not voluntary; it has been forced. 



"The over-pastuting of the public and private grazing lauds has 

 made it impossible to depend on them for the winter's food supply^ 



