THE NEW SOIL IRRIGATION. 79 



quency with which drouth in the Middle and Eastern States 

 reduces the crop to half a yield. If the value of the full crop 

 would have been but $25 an acre, then the loss per acre is 

 $12.50. What would the farmer give for a sufficient water 

 supply to secure a maximum crop? Certainly $10 an acre. 

 But the irrigator gets his for $2 an acre, and besides he has 

 constantly the satisfaction of knowing in advance precisely 

 what he may depend upon, both in supply and in results. 



But the benefits of irrigation become plainly apparent if 

 we compare the selling price of farm land in the irrigated 

 and in the other sections of the country. First-class Eastern 

 farms sell for $100 an acre, because they are at the doors 

 of an illimitable market. The same class of lands in the mid- 

 dle West sell at practically the same figure because of their 

 abundant yield, and also because they are not too distant from 

 the 4 " great markets. But what is it that gives to farm lands 

 in Western Dakota and Kansas, in Montana and Idaho, in 

 Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and particularly in 

 California, a value equal to and often surpassing that of the 

 best lands in the best sections of this country ? If we consider 

 the yield from irrigated land, the question will answer itself. 

 In these regions 8 tons of alfalfa and 5 tons of timothy and 

 clover may be mowed from a single acre during the year. An 

 acre in potatoes will turn you out 13 tons, and an acre in or- 

 chard will bear you 12 tons of product. On the irrigated 

 sugar plantations of the Rio Grande Valley, the average yield 

 is 40 tons of the raw material, or 5,000 pounds of refined 

 sugar to the acre, and the cane reproduces several years in 

 succession before replanting becomes necessary. Onion grow- 

 ers have realized as much as $600 from a single acre. Near 

 N. Yakema, Washington, lives Mrs. Snively on a farm of 4 



