THE. IRRIGATION AGE. 



LOOK TO THE WEST FOR HOMES. 



Great Opportunities for the Weary Wage Earner on Irrigated 

 Tracts in the West. 



There are many questions relating to this great 

 subject of irrigation that address themselves as worthy 

 of the most intelligent consideration on the part of, not 

 only irrigators, hut those who contemplate investing 

 in farm lands in the section commonly known as "The 

 Arid West." It has been the intention of the writer 

 for some years past to begin a series of articles covering 

 all questions which would naturally come to the mind 

 of a prospective irrigation farmer, and with that end 

 in view the editor of THE IRRIGATION AGE will spend 

 the greater part of the present summer visiting different 

 irrigated sections throughout the West. It is his in- 

 tention to become personally acquainted with small irri- 



Inverted Syphon, Condon Irrigating Ditch, three miles from North Yakima, 

 Wash., on Northern Pacific Railway. 



gation farmers and learn from them their individual 

 experiences in developing small tracts of land, the orig- 

 inal cost of this land, the expense attached to moving 

 on to it from their present homes and explain in detail 

 the difficulties encountered, if any, and the success at- 

 tained under varying conditions both as to soil, locality, 

 methods of securing water for lands, and care will be 

 given to securing data as to what a given amount of 

 money will accomplish under different conditions. 



This line of work has been brought to the writer's 

 attention more directly in the last few months by the re- 

 ceipt of numerous inquiries from people throughout 

 the eastern and central States by which they seek to 

 learn what given sums of money will permit them to 

 accomplish in the way of purchasing a tract of land, 

 either improved or otherwise. 



It was this thought that induced the writer to 

 make an initial trip over part of the Northwest recently 

 The people interviewed on this visit were mainly men 

 who have established irrigation projects of greater or 

 less magnitude, projects developed for the purpose of 

 supplying water to land subdivided into tracts of from 

 ten to one hundred acres or more secured by settlers 

 either from private owners, the State in which the sys- 

 tem is in operation, or under what is known as the Ca- 

 rey act, whereby the settler is enabled to secure land 

 from the State at the rate of fifty cents per acre pro- 

 vided he contracts to purchase a perpetual water right 

 from the corporation which constructs the system. 

 It is not our intention to advertise in any way these 

 corporations furnishing water, further than is necessary 

 in explaining the general scheme. 



What is irrigation? If this question had been 

 asked of every individual in the United States twenty- 

 five years ago, a very large proportion of them, perhaps 

 95 per cent of the total number, could not have answered 

 it intelligently, nor would they, in all probability, have 

 had any correct conception of its relation to the welfare 

 and progress of mankind ; yet so rapidly and universally 

 has the "irrigation idea" spread, that it is today a 

 household theme throughout the land. 



It originated, so far as this country is concerned, 

 as a concomitant necessity to existence, in the settle- 

 ment of that great estate of public domain known as 

 the "Arid West." At first it was considered as an oner- 

 ous condition to the prosecution of agriculture, to be 

 palliated and excused by those resorting to it, and com- 

 miserated by the humid Pharisee from the East. Hap- 

 pily we have now passed beyond that phase of the ques- 

 tion, for irrigation has not only rendered it possible to 

 live in the so-called desert, but it has made it so profit- 

 able and delightful to live there that this same desert 

 has become a veritable mecca for Utopian seekers. Prom 

 being a problem concerning only the misguided home- 

 seeker, begotten of sinister necessity, it has become one 

 of the living, potent factors of human progress, and it 

 is making for itself a large place in national policy. 

 It has disclosed a vista of corollated propositions and 

 questions, political, social, industrial 'and scientific, per- 

 Jaining to rural life, and engaging its fundamental sur- 

 roundings and conditions to that extent that its entire 

 aspect is being changed. That irrigation conduces to 

 the betterment and promotion of the ruralist, goes with- 

 out the saying and nothing better can be said of its use- 

 fulness than the promise it affords as the greatest in- 

 fluence in arresting the decay of farm life. 



Like all other great questions and causes it has its 

 zealots on one hand and its critics on the other, and it 

 is difficult to tell from the hands of which it suffers the 

 most. Taking all that can be truthfully and conserva- 

 tively claimed for the future of irrigation, there is 

 enough to commend it to the sober and thoughtful con- 

 sideration of the people and to demand for it a dignified 

 place in the economy and policy of the Government, hut 

 to heed all of the vagaries and concede all of the absurd 

 claims of its over-zealous friends will only serve to 

 bring it into disrepute and disappointment to its in- 

 terests. 



With each change of the moon there is heralded 

 some new disciple of the propaganda of irrigation, and 

 he brings to his consideration his contribution to the 

 literature of the subject, generally brilliant in theory 



