146 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



an illustration of what may be accomplished, there has recently 

 been completed an irrigation system which brings into culti- 

 vation over 1,000,000 acres of remarkably fertile land, which 

 was formerly worthless on account of lack of water. This land 

 will furnish support for 10,000 families, or 50,000 people. The 

 original cost to the government was less than that of a single 

 battleship, and eventually the cost will be nothing at all, because 

 it will be paid back by the owners of the land, who receive 

 the benefit. 



The possibilities of irrigation in western America may be 

 imagined when we consider that the entire cultivated area of 

 Egypt, all of which is irrigated by the Nile, does not exceed 

 6,000,000 acres. But this area now supports a population of 

 5,000,000 or more. It has been densely populated for a longer 

 period than the historian can reckon, and was the seat of the 

 most ancient civilization of which we have any record. No one 

 can tell accurately how much land in the United States is capa- 

 ble of reclamation by irrigation, but some of our leading experts 

 on that subject assert that the Missouri River and its tribu- 

 taries can be made to irrigate three times the land now cultivated 

 along the Nile. The dense population of Egypt is made pos- 

 sible partly by the low standard of living of the inhabitants, and 

 partly by the remarkable fertility of the land, combining as it 

 does rich alluvial soil made fertile by the annual deposits of 

 Nile mud, with abundant moisture and intense semitropical 

 heat. Of course it is neither probable nor desirable that the 

 region to be watered by the Missouri River should ever be popu- 

 lated by men with such a low standard of living. Therefore it 

 is not probable or desirable that it should sustain such a dense 

 agricultural population, unless the land can be made vastly 

 more fertile than that of Egypt. It is better to have a sparse 

 population well supported than a dense population meagerly 

 supported. According to the census of 1900 there were a little 



