THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



139 



As the great resources of the west are developed, as is being done 

 in leaps and bounds, as manufactories spring up and multiply as ad- 

 juncts to its varied wealth of mineral to turn out the finished product 

 instead of raw material, as they are beginning to do, and other indus- 

 tries giving employment increase and arise, as they are certain to do, 

 these agricultural oases will become veritable gold mines to their 

 owners. 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR CAPITAL. 



These advantages so clearly manifest to the initiated are becoming 

 knowu to the average farmer, and consequently the demand for irri- 

 gated lands now exceeds the supply. 



It is the undoubted duty of Uncle Sam to construct canals, build 

 reservoirs and apply water to the irrigable portions of the public do- 

 main. If he would do this and sell the water rights and land to them 

 at cost, homes of their own and opportunity would be furnished to 

 millions of his nephews and nieces, who must now, perforce, work 



Irrigating in Greece with Tympanum. 



rented farms, yielding the best part of the fruits of their labor to 

 those who toil not nor spin. 



Also it would provide homes and opportunity for tens of thousand* 

 who are crowded out of occupations by the centralizing agency of 

 trusts and monopolies. 



It is not for us to criticise or mourn over spilled milk, but doubt- 

 less our blessed Uncle Sam was unwittingly drawn into it and, having 

 caught the bear by the tail, is unable to let go; but if the millions 

 which have been spent and will continue to be spent on the Philippines 

 were devoted to reclaiming the arid and semi-arid public domain an 

 empire would have been created worth a thousand times more to our 

 own people each year than the whole archipelago will yield in a cen- 

 tury. Our Uncle is in the Philippines, however, and is slow to appre- 

 ciate the necessity of reclaiming his vast domain. It remains, there- 

 fore, for private capital to do what the public, as a whole, should un- 

 dertake to do, and never was there a better opportunity. 



