VIEWS ON GOVERNMENT CONTROL, 



BY B. W. RICE, ONTARIO, OREGON. 



Irrigation, as we have it at the present, is an art in its infancy. 

 The irrigated districts of the western states, of which we are wont to 

 make our proud boasts, are but mere daubs of clay upon the canvass. 

 The meager systems of distributing water are essentially child's play. 

 With but few notable exceptions, the irrigation canals of the western 

 part of the United States are but travesties. The innumerable trifling 

 canals which gird the foothills and pour their limited supply of water 

 upon the valleys, are but so many indications of what the future has 

 in store for us. So many children crying in the desert. 



Irrigation is the systematic distribution of water throughout the 

 land and the application of the same for the propagation of vegeta- 

 tion. As in all othor arts and sciences, mankind has started with ir- 

 rigation on the experimental plane, have carried it along through this 

 sphere, arriving at those results first which were the easiest attained 

 and undertaking those projects which would yield to the least effort. 

 As a result we now have the entire field of easy irrigation well cov- 

 ered, while it only remains necessary for combined efforts to carry 

 into effect the principle on a larger scale and give the arid region a 

 most thorough, practical and profitable system, and that system is the 

 diverting from the larger rivers, at the proper points, a good part of 

 the water which now rolls on to the sea. 



So pressing is the need for additional irrigation facilities in the 

 west that engineering parties are investigating hundreds of the pro- 

 posed projects. Many of these schemes will, of course, fall by the 

 wayside, for irrigation propositions are like mining schemes or lum- 

 ber deals, the successes are often only on the blueprints. In nearly 

 all of the arid states, and in many sections of each of them, the sur- 

 veyor is endeavoring to hunt out places where water may be raised a 

 little higher and taken a little further out on the land than ever be- 

 fore, while ahead of him and higher up lies the broad expanse of rich 

 land that is certain to be covered later on by some gigantic system 

 that he, in his limited scope, can hardly dare to contemplate. He re- 

 alizes that all work on the systems less than the perfect one will ulti- 

 mately be lost. He contrives to distribute the water before him to' 

 the best possible advantage, while on the heights above him he sees 

 the inevitable, in a constant struggle, calling attention to that which 

 he knows will have to be before the best is had, before the end is 

 reached, and that is a great canal on the high plateaus further back. 

 Everywhere the smaller streams are being carefully measured at the 



