298 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED 

 STATES, PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE. 



BY FRANK W. MONDELL. 

 Chairman of the House Irrigation Committee. 



The national irrigation act, which became a law 

 on June 17, 1902, and which appropriates the receipts 

 from the sale and disposal of the public lands in six- 

 teen western states and territories to the construction 

 of works for the irrigation of arid lands, has very prop- 

 erly been characterized as the most important legisla- 

 tion for the development ' of the great West since the 

 passage of the Homestead Act. Under wise adminis- 

 tration, which hap- 

 pily seems assured, 

 there is every pros- 

 pect that the reason- 

 able hopes and ex- 

 pectations of the 

 friends of the meas- 

 ure will be realized, 

 and that in th'e 

 course of a very few 

 years a considerable 

 acreage will be add- 

 ed annually to our 

 cultivated area 

 through the medium 

 of this law, without 

 expense to the tax 

 payers of the coun- 

 try, the original out- 

 lay being provided 

 for by land sales in 

 the territory to be 

 benefited and ulti- 

 mately repaid by 

 those who shall es- 

 tablish homes on the 

 lands irrigated. 



The moneys paid 

 in by the settlers, 

 are, under the pro- 

 visions of the law, to 

 be used again for the 

 reclamation of other 

 lands, and thus a re- 

 volving fund is cre- 

 ated and the work of 

 reclamation is to be 



carried on until the HON. FRANK 



limit of available 

 water supply for enterprises of sufficient magnitude to 

 invite Government undertakings under the measure shall 

 have been exhausted. 



The field of operations of the law has an area of 

 over thirteen hundred thousand square miles. The acre- 

 age which may ultimately be brought under cultiva- 

 tion through this agency, while largely a matter of 

 conjecture at this time, will certainly run well into the 

 tens of millions of acres. The works which will be 

 undertaken will undoubtedly, many of them, rank 

 among the largest and most important hydraulic works 

 of the world. The communities created will in time 

 contain millions of souls; and lands and regions now 

 arid and almost valueless and uninhabited will teem 

 with a dense population under the highly satisfactory 



social and industrial conditions which obtain through 

 the intense cultivation of small farms under irrigation. 

 In view of these facts, it is not strange that the law 

 should be considered one of the most important that 

 has ever been written upon the statute books of the 

 nation. 



Important and far-reaching as the national irriga- 

 tion law is, however, and helpful and beneficial as its 

 operation will be in providing homes for a large num- 

 ber of people, it should be remembered that the law 

 by no means marked the beginning of irrigation de- 

 velopment in the United States; nor was it intended 

 or expected to occupy fully the field of activity which, 

 up to the time of its passage, had been exclusively oc- 

 cupied and developed 

 by individual, co-op- 

 erative and corporate 

 enterprise. 



At the time of 

 the passage of the ir- 

 rigation law, we had 

 an irrigated area in 

 the arid region of 

 the United States of 

 approximately eight 

 million acres, a larg- 

 er area than that ar- 

 tificially watered in 

 any other country 

 except British India ; 

 and while no lands 

 have as yet been 

 watered and in all 

 probability no con- 

 siderable acreage will 

 be for the next two 

 years under national 

 projects, yet irriga- 

 tion reclamation by 

 private enterprise has 

 not been retarded by 

 the passage of the 

 act, but on the other 

 hand, as was antici- 

 pated, seems to have 

 received an impetus 

 therefrom. The cen- 

 sus bureau estimates 

 that approximately 

 9,200.000 acres were 

 under irrigation in 

 July of this year. 

 This is an increase 

 since the irrigation season of 1899 as reported in 

 the census of 1900 of 1,660,455 acres, an increase 

 which, if continued, will double our irrigated area 

 of 1900, by means of private enterprise, in thirteen 

 years. 



In the main the lands irrigated by private enter- 

 prise and individual effort have been those offering the 

 most attractive opportunities, by reason of low cost 

 of the undertaking per acre irrigated and favorable con- 

 ditions of climate, soil and market. There have been 

 some notable exceptions to the general rule of low 

 cost and comparatively limited acreage under a single 

 enterprise where the conditions have been exceptionally 

 favorable; and as time passes, more ambitious and ex- 

 tensive projects for the irrigation of considerable areas 



W. MONDELL 

 from Wyoming. 



