20 



THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



western farmers are to be tenants or proprietors. Every 

 acre of land irrigated ought to have a right to the 

 water it requires. In this way the owner of every home 

 will be secure and water monopolies be impossible. The 

 disposal of the water resources of the West should be 

 hedged about with every safeguard that wisdom or ex- 

 perience can suggest, and to do this there is need at 

 the very outset of a full understanding of the exist- 

 ing situation. The first thing needed is the facts ; the 

 next thing is an enlightened public sentiment which will 

 make the right use of them. We need to know what 

 has been done by private enterprise in the past. We 

 need to fully understand all the merits and defects of 

 State irrifation codes. We need to know the extent 

 of the water supply. This the Geological Survey is 

 determining. Then,, we need to know what are the 

 character of the rights to that supply, and this the 

 Office of Experiment Stations is studving. Making 

 these investigations under the National authority gives 

 them an impartial character and shows to Congress 

 and to the States the vital relation of State laws already 

 enacted to the welfare of irrigators. 



The wisdom of Congress in guaranteeing the pro- 

 tection of rights already established and in making State 

 laws governing the rights to water supreme will, I 

 believe, be vindicated by the future, because in a mat- 

 ter so vitally affecting the welfare of the home as the 

 control of the water supply, changes in laws should 

 come through the action and consent of those most 

 concerned. The need, however, of a larger measure 

 of public supervision over streams is becoming more 

 and more manifest. 



The great demand for water for irrigation purposes, 

 the greater need of cities and towns for domestic uses, 

 the importance of streams in the generation of power, 

 are ma-king it absolutely necessary that some simple and 

 final method of protecting rights to streams shall be 

 provided. The Office of Experiment Stations is en- 

 deavoring to bring this about and with the most en- 

 couraging results. No feature of these investigations 

 has met with more -appreciative recognition than the 

 study of water-right problems. The value of what has 

 been done is not to be measured, how.ever, by the re- 

 sults already achieved, because all educational influences 

 must be slow in their operation. The real value of 

 the work being done by the office can only be told by 

 its future influence on the social and industrial life 

 of the West. 



The irrigation work of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture supplements its work along other lines in the arid 

 region. It goes along with the Bureau of Plant In- 

 dustry in its efforts to bring about a better management 

 of the grazing areas; with the Bureaus of Chemistry and 

 Soils in their studies of soils and water; and with the 

 Weather Bureau in its measurement of rains and snows. 



Nor is its irrigation work confined to 'the arid 

 region. It is an essential part of the Department's work 

 in the humid East. It is showing that irrigation is a 

 benefit rather 'than a drawback, and is helping the 

 farmers of that section to make use of it. Nothing 

 is more significant than the rapidly growing demand 

 for information and advice about irrigation which is 

 coming from eastern farmers. Letters from every State 

 in the Union not only manifest an active desire to 

 know more, about irrigation in the arid West, but how 

 it can be applied as an aid to production in the East. 

 The answering of these inquiries and the furnishing of 

 this advice are destined to be an important factor in 



promoting the success of agriculture throughout the 

 country, and in strengthening the demand for land and 

 water under the works which the Nation is to build. 



Those of the uninformed masses of the people who 

 attended the National Irrigation Congress at Colorado 

 Springs this week came to the conclusion that some- 

 thing has evidently been doing in Colorado within the 

 past score of years, and that we are surely becoming civ- 

 ilized through the beneficent influence of the waters 

 led captive. These folks see that Colorado has awakened 

 at last and is now first in the rank of irrigated states. 

 Twenty years ago farming was practically an unknown 

 quantity in Colorado. The people were all after the 

 elusive dollar hidden in the bowels of the earth in 

 the mines. It was a speculative era. Only the live 

 stock that grazed on the plains brought reward to the 

 yeomanry. 



The speculative era passed and investors began to 

 investigate the possibility of the application of water 

 from tbe streams to the soil. Money came to us from 

 the East by the bagful. Great canals were constructed 

 and now Colorado is blessed with the investment of 

 $100,000,000 in the building of irrigating ditches, reser- 

 voirs and laterals. Today the question of irrigation is 

 acknowledged to be one of the greatest of all the promi- 

 nent ones before the people of the West. Proper irri- 

 gation means that Colorado will double and treble its 

 population and become one of the foremost agricultural 

 states of the Union. 



Tne whole western half of the United States con- 

 tains today less than one-tenth of the total population 

 of the entire country. Two-thirds of it is yet govern- 

 ment land. If tbe water that goes to waste every year 

 in our western rivers were saved and used for irrigation 

 the West would sustain a greater population than the 

 whole United States contains today. Millions of acres 

 will in time be transformed from deserts into populous 

 and prosperous farming communities. Alfalfa fields 

 crowded with improved stock will take the place of sand 

 and sagebrush. Valleys and hillsides will blossom with 

 the fruiting of the orchards and vineyards and the now 

 arid plains will be carpeted with fields of waving grain. 



Great as will be this agricultural development, it 

 will constitute but a part of the whole grand result. 

 Farms will bring both railroads and cheap and plentiful 

 food into many regions of the West where immense 

 bodies of minerals are awaiting only transportation and 

 a: lower cost of living to make it possible to work 

 them profitably. Not only this, but the waters stored 

 in mountain reservoirs will furnish power for all min- 

 ing operations and the changed conditions which must 

 result if all the waters that now go to waste are stored 

 and saved can scarcely be conceived at this time. The 

 irrigation congress this week anticipated all these possi- 

 bilities and again rallied the people into renewed energy 

 and enthusiasm regarding the future. Denver Field & 

 Farm. 



The following letter to the Leader was received 

 recently: "Editor Leader: Will you please tell me 

 how to make cement for a ground dirt reservoir ? I have 

 a tank that leaks. Thanking you in advance for the 

 information. I remain, yours truly. Subscriber." The 

 following makes a good cheap cement for ground tanks : 

 72 per cent clean sand; 3 per cent lime; 25 per cent 

 coal tar, by weight. Mix well and plaster over tank 

 about three-quarters to an inch thick. When dry paint 

 over with pure coal tar. Pearsall (Texas) Leader. 



