106 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



IRRIGATION IN THE SOUTHWEST. 



BY A. J. WELLS. 



When a lecturer before one of the Boston clubs a 

 few years ago said that the arid lands west of the Rocky 

 Mountains were "the ideal lands for agriculture," his 

 words provoked a laugh. But they were true. The only 

 scientific agriculture is irrigated agriculture and the 

 more nearly the lands to be cultivated are rainless, the 

 more nearly ideal are the conditions. This is especially 

 the case in the Southwest where the rainfall is slight, 

 the soil fertile and the climate semi-tropical. This puts 

 the problem of production where the farmer who has 

 an irrigating ditch can solve it by a turn of his wrist. 

 The three factors are: Soil, warmth and moisture. 

 Given these and the farmer who does not raise a good 

 crop every year has himself to blame and not the 

 weather; for the arid lands are the fertile lands over 

 wide areas. They are not leached by excessive rainfall, 



Mr. A. J. Wells, San Francisco, Cal. 



and 300 cloudless days in the year provide plant life, 

 the stimulus at once of light and heat, while moisture 

 distributed when it is needed and where it is needed 

 insures the conditions of tropic growth without the 

 perils of the tropic climate. 



Prof. Elwood Mead, studying the subject in 

 the field, traversing both humid and arid regions in 

 search of facts and visiting the great irrigated regions 

 of Italy for data, says of irrigation in humid lands: 



"Under irrigation the farmer is practically sure of 

 his crop every year. In ordinary or extra dry years the 

 crop is increased two and sometimes three fold. The 

 crops are always of superior quality." 



Now if these are the results in humid regions, 

 "what should the harvest be" in the sunny and fertile 

 lands of the Southwest ? In the words of the old Hebrew 



prophet, "if these things are done in the green tree, 

 what shall be done in the dry?" If these are the ad- 

 vantages of irrigation where rainfall is more or less 

 ample and the climate cold for half the year and varia- 

 ble for the rest, what can not be done where winters are 

 green and summers are brown and the days of sunshine 

 exceed those of Italy or the south of France? 



One of the practical results of irrigation will be 

 that the farmer of the twentieth century will appreciate 

 climate as a factor in successful farm work. He has 

 been covetous for broad acres, and has "bucked" against 

 inclement skies as patiently or as contentedly as he 

 might, and generally has not weighed the advantages 

 of a mild climate against a big farm. But climate that 

 will stimulate plant growth and invite the plant grower 

 out of doors, that will push the farmers' crops and be 

 considerate of the farmers' comfort, has a cash ralue. 

 There are larger and better crops on a given acreage. 

 The fruits of the summer's labor is not consumed in 

 the inactivity of the winter; growth goes on all the 

 year, production does not cease, the soil yields two 

 harvests and stock is cheaply provided for. Irrigation 

 reduces the land area necessary to a livelihood, so that 

 twenty acres suffice, and forty acres are an abundance; 

 makes midsummer green with the loveliness of spring, 

 obviates or lessens the dust and discomfort of dry 

 weather and "makes it possible to create rural homes 

 which represent an average of human comfort" such 

 as were never seen on the prairies or in the woodlands 

 of the middle West. These considerations are drawing 

 many to the Southwest, and the National Irrigation Act 

 of 1902 is providing for a large increase of population 

 by the great irrigation systems in process of creation, 

 or awaiting future development in "the land of little 

 rain." 



What irrigation will do in the sands of the Col- 

 orado desert is shown in the success of the colony around 

 Imperial, a town of more than 2,000 people and con- 

 nected with four other towns and surrounded by hun- 

 dreds of cultivated farms, the whole the growth of the 

 years since January 6, 1902, when a corps of surveyors 

 first broke ground for an irrigating system. Some in- 

 terruption of this remarkable growth has lately occurred, 

 owing to the failure of the engineers to provide for the 

 safety of the intake from the capricious river, but this 

 is temporary, and perhaps helpfully emphasizes the im- 

 portance of government initiative and control when 

 dealing with water supplies from delta rivers like the 

 Colorado here and the Sacramento in California. But 

 the beginning of a complete transformation of a large 

 area of the desert section in southeastern California is 

 here. Here are growing melons equal to any in Persia, 

 and a Garden of Dates promises to stock a region 

 which the government experts think quits adapted to 

 this characteristic fruit of Asia. So that we need only 

 to import a few Arabs and recover the government 

 camels that were lost in Arizona years ago, to make this 

 desert look like a section of North Africa. 



The extensive plans of the federal engineers have 

 begun to take shape above Yuma and the irrigable area 

 here is immense and much of it adapted to citrus cul- 

 ture. It would not be surprising to see here a new 

 orange district; a.nd as the river carries in its red cur- 

 rent a vast load of silt the fertilization of orange groves 

 will be a natural process. 



Yuma is traditionally warm, but it is dry, drier, 

 driest, and is at once wonderfully healthful and quite 



