144 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



merchandise of the melting snows, by selling 'rights' to the 

 ' renting ' of water, and by collecting toll from a new class of 

 society to be known as ' water tenants.' 1 



As individual settlers were able to construct their own ir- 

 rigation works only where very little outlay was necessary, so 

 was the cooperative principle adaptable only where it was pos- 

 sible for a group of settlers, by their own labor, to construct 

 the works. In order that the available water supply might be 

 developed to its full capacity and applied in the most economic 

 manner, it became necessary, in some cases at least, to plan 

 the works on a comprehensive scale, requiring an expenditure 

 of capital beyond the reach of cooperative colonies. Therefore 

 the corporation method came into play. It was capable of 

 undertaking projects larger than the cooperative, and vastly 

 larger than the individual plan could carry out. Accordingly, 

 when the opportunities for diverting water cheaply had been 

 utilized by private individuals and by cooperative organizations, 

 and before the federal or the state governments had awakened 

 to the necessities of the case, all the larger and costlier irri- 

 gation works were built by corporations. Some magnificent 

 works were built during this period, involving a vast outlay of 

 capital and engineering feats of a very high order. 



While some of these undertakings turned out to be financial 

 successes, many of them proved ruinous failures. After the 

 works were constructed and the water was made available for 

 irrigation, it w 7 as found in several cases impossible to pay even 

 the running expenses from the receipts, to say nothing of pay- 

 ing back the original expenditure. Accordingly, many of these 

 companies failed, and in some cases the entire property was 

 sold for one tenth of what its construction had cost. In many 



1 From " Rise and Future of Irrigation in the United States," by Elwood 

 Mead, expert in charge of irrigation investigations, United States Department 

 of Agriculture, in Yearbook of Department of Agriculture (1899), p. 594. 



