THE IRRIGATION AGE 



VOL. XVIII. 



CHICAGO, JUNE, 1903. 



No. 8. 



THE IRRIGATION AGE 



THE D. H. ANDERSON PUBLISHING CO., 



PUBLISHERS, 

 112 Dearborn Street, CHICAGO 



Entered at the Postoffice at Chicago, 111., as Second-Class Matter. 



D. H. ANDERSON, Editor. 



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A monthly illustrated magazine recognized throughout the world as 

 the exponent of Irrigation and its kindred industries. It is the pioneer 

 journal of its kind in the world, and has no rival in half a continent. It 

 advocates the mineral development and the industrial growth of the West. 



tr A rl X7Prfi P>r It may interest advertisers to know that The Irrigation Age is the only publication 

 s * in the world having an actual paid in advance circulation among individual 



irrigators and large irrigation corporations. It is read regularly by all interested in this subject and has readers in all parts of the world. 



The Irrigation Age is J8 years old and is the pioneer publication of its class in the world. 



Copyright 1003 by D. H. Anderson. 



EDITORIAL 



We wonder if President Eoosevelt is still 

 '"George." addressing Maxwell as "George." If so, 



what will he call him when he is fully 

 posted on all his methods, aspirations, connections, 

 governmental and otherwise? 



The position of Executive Chairman of 

 The National Irrigation Association must 

 be a good paying one when George H. 

 Maxwell [who fills it by the grace of his 

 friends in the Geological Survey and Inte- 

 rior Department] can pay eight to twelve thousand dol- 

 lars for a winter home in Arizona. 



How about 



this, 



"George?" 



Elwood Mead, E. E., M. S., holds the 

 Elwood important place of chief of irrigation in- 



Mead's Book vestigations of the Department of Agri- 

 on Irrigation, culture in Washington ; is also the pro- 

 fessor of institutions and of the practice 

 of irrigation in the University of California, and spe- 

 cial lecturer in Harvard on irrigation engineering, so 

 if any one can speak with authority on this important 

 and interesting problem it is certainly Professor Mead. 

 He has had twenty years' experience in irrigated agri- 

 culture in the far West. He was assistant state engi- 

 neer in Wyoming and the state engineer in Colorado. 



All phases of the question of hydraulic engineering have 

 passed under his practical administration. 



With this experience to justify him, Mr. Mead has 

 published a book on Irrigation which is a clear cut re- 

 suim of everything pertaining to the subject. The 

 author is a strong advocate of the importance of irriga- 

 tion, and the early unification of the diverse laws upon 

 the subject so as to create a uniform system. He be- 

 lieves that far reaching changes in the irrigation sys- 

 tems of the West must occur in the near future. These 

 will involve new methods of social organization and 

 new forms of co-operation. 



The De- 

 struction of 

 Forests. 



It is a pity that this subject was not gone 

 into scientifically when it might have 

 been of some public utility. But it was 

 easier and less troublesome to cut down 

 the forests, and denude the land that solve 

 the problem. Now, that men's lives are not worth a 

 baubee, and tens of millions of dollars worth of property 

 destroyed, crops ruined, and lands washed out by sud- 

 den, unparalleled floods, the question again becomes 

 burning. 



The old forests will not return by the whistling of 

 'them back, so what 'is there to be done about it ? Some 

 say plant new forests, and the magazines" are full of 

 illustrations of how beautiful barren lands will look, 

 ten, twenty, thirty and fifty years hence if everybody 

 begins planting forest trees now. 



It is a good but dilatory scheme, for the country 

 cannot sit clown and wait half a centurv for trees to 



