THE ADVANTAGES OF IRRIGATION. 17 



giving the farmer three bad crops to every two good 

 ones. As a matter of fact the intrinsic advantages of 

 irrigation concern and are within reach of the farmer of 

 the humid region quite as much as his fellow in the arid 

 climate; and in many, if not in most, cases his wjiU-r 

 supply will cost him less, and when once applied will 

 never be given up. There can be no doubt that when 

 the available waters of the humid region are examined 

 in regard to the supplies of plant food they are capable 

 of giving to lands irrigated with them, they will be found 

 to be nearly, if not quite, as valuable in this respect as 

 those of the arid region. 



Another suggestion along this line presents itself 

 right here : As there is no material difference in the cost 

 of cultivation of an acre yielding ten bushels of wheat 

 and another acre yielding sixty bushels, it must be 

 evident that the man who gets only ten bushels pays six 

 times as much as does the man who produces sixty 

 bushels. The profits to be derived from "the new agri- 

 culture," as irrigation has aptly been called, comes not 

 alone from the annual return from the watered acres, 

 but from the constantly increasing valuation of the land 

 itself. Many individual instances could be cited, espe- 

 cially in regions devoted to fruit culture, where the returns 

 are almost fabulous. Lands which were worth from two 

 to ten dollars an acre have by the expenditure of from 

 ten to twenty dollars an acre in the construction of irri- 

 gation works become worth $300 an acre and upward. 

 The same lands set out with suitable varieties of trees 

 and vines have sold within five years of planting at $1,000 

 or more an acre. So valuable are irrigated lands in 

 Spain that they sell for $720 to $880 an acre, which is 

 ten times the price of the unirrigated, and the same 

 ratio of values prevails elsewhere. 



In summarizing the manifold advantages that the 

 irrigation blessing has brought to humanity through all 

 2 



