CHAPTER VI. 



IRRIGATION FARMING. 



The country is dry and the people are the most 

 sober and earnest users of water to be found anywhere, 



SIZE OP The small boy eats too manv green apples 



IRRIGATED . _c 1,1 



FARM just to keep them from going to waste, and the 



farmer acquires too much land just because he 

 wants the earth. The relation between the size 

 of a farm and its economical working and man- 

 agement has not been given the attention it de- 

 serves. Under humid conditions a man could 

 hold much land without feeling any especially 

 baneful effects. Under irrigation the whole 

 problem is changed. In the West, land is abund- 

 ant, water is scarce; land is cheap, water is ex- 

 pensive. Investments in water rights are too 

 valuable to lie idle. The farmer has less time to 

 do things and get them, done in season. Inten- 

 sive culture characterizes irrigation agriculture. 

 When a crop needs irrigating, the need is urgent. 

 It cannot be put off for the whole crop and the 

 margin of time may be too small to make it prof- 

 itable to put off farm operations on any part of 

 the- field. Maximum returns arc mily made on 

 small field-;, well tilled and irrigated. A farmer 

 may be self-supporting on ten to twenty acre-. 

 lie finds all he can attend to on forty acres to 

 -ixty acres and generally has too much land if he 



