162 



THE 1RRIGAION AGE. 



ment that we need more territory for the 

 accommodation of our rising generations, 

 and when a single season's drouth, section- 

 al only in its extent, so seriously disturbs 

 the normal supply of certain lines of food 

 stuffs, it looks as if our economists should 

 begin the study of the proper husbanding 

 of our resources. 



Recent history tells us of the direful 

 famines in Russia and India. We read 

 the harrowing details of starvation, 'of 

 pestilence, of death. We pity, we give in 

 charity, yet. draw no material lesson from 

 the carnival of famine. We attribute the 

 sufferings of these people to ignorance and 

 Pagan fatalism, and there let the matter 

 rest. Does not our optimism almost amount 

 to fatalism? Have we provided for the 

 future by either laying in a store of sur- 

 plus breadstuffs or providing means where- 

 by we may stem the disaster of a possible 

 wide-spread drouth? 



The nation at large should understand 

 that irrigation is not a sectional question. 

 Who is able to compute the losses sus- 

 tained by the farmers of Kansas, Missouri, 

 Nebraska and other states of the Middle 

 West by last summer's drouth? He who 

 is able to do this should next exploit his 

 mathematical genius in approximating the 

 contingent loss to all other lines of busi- 

 ness in those states and the added burden 

 of the great consuming masses of the Union 

 through the advance in the cost of the 

 leading staples of popular consumption. 

 Think how hard it must be through the 

 days of grim winter for the poor to have 

 this extra burden laid upon their shoul- 

 ders; and how many young and craving 

 appetites will go unsatisfied in consequence 

 of the prevailing high cost of those two 

 very important articles of food corn and 

 potatoes! Yet it is so hard to estimate the 

 real extent of popular hardship until act 

 ual famine comes, because the great com- 

 mon people are so brave, so proud, so un- 

 complaining. 



In the midst of all this untold distress, 

 if not actual suffering, the Colorado farm- 



ers prosper as they have never prospered 

 before. But I know that they are not un- 

 feeling enough to congratulate themselves 

 upon the indirect cause of their prosperity 

 the blighting drouth that burned up the 

 substance of their eastern brethren. They 

 can only rejoice that destiny guided their 

 wandering footsteps to that part of the 

 country where a system of irrigation stands 

 between them and the destructive effects 

 of periodic drouth. They did not escape 

 the drouth, however, which only goes to 

 prove more conclusively the inestimable 

 value of irrigation as an agricultural expe- 

 dient. Copious rains fell during the spring 

 extending up to the last of May. Then 

 they ceased, and there followed three 

 months of hot, dry weather. No more 

 rains that would any way affect growing 

 crops fell until the middle of September. 

 But thanks to the ample rainfall of the 

 spring, crops of all kinds got a good start, 

 and this fortunate circumstance, supple- 

 mented by an ample supply of irrigation 

 water, brought about most surprising and 

 gratifying results. Crops of all kinds pro- 

 duced remarkably. Some fields of wheat 

 ran as high as sixty bushels to the acre, 

 and other cereals proportionately. The 

 potato crop a crop of present and increas- 

 ing importance was a bounteous one, 

 some fields yielding as high as 200 sacks to 

 the acre, each sack holding 115 pounds. 

 The hay crop, alfalfa, native and standard 

 upland, was also large and was gathered in 

 the very best possible condition, as a result 

 of the continued hot and dry weather, and 

 the hay stacks stand today all throughout 

 the snow-clad fields, a living proof of the 

 benefits of irrigation. Let us see what the 

 Colorado farmer is getting today for the 

 last season's products of his lands! Po- 

 tatoes have brought all the way from $1.30> 

 to $1.50 per hundred pounds by the car 

 load lot, and have retailed in Fort Collins 

 as high as $1.65 per hundred. Wheat sells 

 at $1.25, barley at $1.30 and oats at $1.35- 

 per hundrod pounds. Alfalfa, baled and 

 delivered at the cars, has been selling for 



