THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



107 



comfortable. A great growth of population is inevit- 

 able as soon as the lands adjacent are provided with 

 water. In the garden valley of Arizona, Salt River and 

 the Rio Verde are being dammed, the great camp of the 

 Government at Roosevelt working day and night to com- 

 plete the Tonto Basin scheme. 



of trees that he gasps with astonishment. It is "the 

 miracle of irrigation," and as he finds health in this 

 arid land, his only regret is that water is not available 

 for larger areas. For this means bounty and blessing, 

 it means homes and income for a multitude for whom 

 the climate holds something that medicine can not give. 



LOWER COLORADO RIVER 

 SHOWING IRRIGABLE LANDS 



UNITED STATES & MEXICO 



Relief Map of the Region Watered by Colorado River Projects This map shows not only the region to 

 be irrigated by the Government's Yuma project 100,000 acres in Arizona and 17,000 acres in Cali- 

 fornia but marks plainly the great Imperial basin of California, where private enterprise has developed 

 the most wonderful example of the benefits of irrigation to be seen in this country. Here, in a below- 

 sea-level arid region, are nearly 100,000 acres under irrigation and producing marvelous crops; 150,000 

 more capable of irrigation when the work is completed; and three thriving towns with an aggregate 

 population close to 10,000 all this accomplished in less than three years. The water for all this 

 work is diverted from the Colorado River. 



Doubtless the readers of the IRRIGATION AGE are 

 familiar with the details of this great plan, but only 

 those who have seen what water can do in this sunny 

 realm and in this fertile soil, can realize how much an 

 adequate irrigation system means to this valley. Here 

 the easterner steps out of the desert into such wealth 

 of field and garden and orchard, and comes off of the 

 sunburnt plains into such richness of color and shade 



Here irrigation is a necessity, and here, where 

 there are sometimes 300 cloudless days in the year and 

 winter is but a prolonged spring, the farmers' returns 

 tax credulity. But it is probably true, as the Governor 

 of Arizona said two years ago, that "Agriculture in the 

 territory has reached the full extent of the natural water 

 supply," and the blessings of the Reclamation Service 

 are therefore hailed as the means of increasing the pop- 



