62 



THE IKEIGATION AGE. 



Irrigation in Victoria 



By 



ELWOOD MEAD, M. Am., C. E., M. Inst-.C.E., 

 Chairman State Rivers and Water Supply Com- 



mission. 



In the Engineering Record of January 20, 1909, ap- 

 peared an article on "Irrigation in Victoria," which de- 

 scribed the difficulties which irrigation development had 

 encountered, and contained near its close the following 

 sentence: 



"From the terms of the water act referred to, and 

 from the discussions which took place in the Victorian 

 parliament regarding it, the inference which may fairly be 

 drawn is that from the general taxpayer's point of view 

 the irrigation works must be regarded as a permanent 

 and hopeless failure." 



It is true that the state as a whole pays a consider- 

 able interest on sums spent on irrigation development. 

 Part of this is on sums written off an indebtedness of 

 irrigation trusts several years ago, and part interest on 

 works which were built as free headworks, and on which 

 it was announced at the outset no interest would be 

 charged. But last year the completed state works instead 

 of being a hopeless failure from the taxpayer's stand- 

 point paid 4 per cent interest on the existing capital debt, 

 and met all operating expenses and current repairs. And 

 they would have done equally well this year had it not 

 been for a large sum spent on extensions and betterments 

 which have not yet become revenue producing. When 

 the water which this makes available comes into use 

 there is every reason to believe that the entire irrigation 

 system will pay 4 per cent interest on the reduced capital 

 debt and provide a satisfactory sinking fund for the ulti- 

 mate extinguishment of that debt. And as the state is 

 able to borrow money at 3yi per cent interest the tax- 

 payer is not likely to suffer. 



The real cause of the financial losses incurred in the 

 earlier years of Victorian irrigation development are not 

 disclosed in the article referred to. They were argricul- 

 tural rather than engineering. When the first works were 

 built the irrigable lands were practically all in private 

 ownership. The farms were large, and irrigation was not 

 a matter of necessity, as the rainfall is sufficient to grow 

 large crops of grain. The landowners had neither the la- 

 bor nor the inclination to adopt the methods of cultiva- 

 tion necessary to success in irrigation. What they did 

 was to secure from the state a costly and extended system 

 of channels planned to supply water to only a few acres 

 of each farm, which was used chiefly to grow fodder crops 

 to supply green food for live stock during' a brief period 

 in summer, when the pastures were dried up. It was 

 found that channels built to carry water past four or five 

 acres of unirrigated territory to supply one acre of irri- 

 gated land were costly to build and still more costly to 

 operate. And it was discovered that when water was 

 applied to land not properly prepared the results were 

 unsatisfactory. 



That irrigation works built on this plan would not pay 

 is now apparent to all who understand the requirements 

 of irrigation. But the difficulty of inducing the land- 

 owners to change their methods before the value of irri- 

 gation had been proved led at the outset to this make- 

 shift substitute. 



That experience and its consequences belong to the 



past, and the losses were no greater than America in- 

 curred during the early years of canal building. The 

 works now being built and those being reconstructed are 

 intended to provide for the complete irrigation of all the 

 land, and wherever the holdings are too large for success- 

 ful results the state is acquiring the land and subdividing 

 it and offering it for sale in small areas. The works now 

 nearing completion will provide water for 250,000 addi- 

 tional acres, and this will open up opportunities ior 

 home seekers not surpassed in any country of which I 

 have any knowledge. 



The reason for this lies in the combination of natural 

 advantages which irrigated agriculture possesses. The 

 climate of Victoria is very like that of California, and the 

 Goulburn Valley, where the chief development is taking 

 place, resembles in many ways the Sacramento Valley 

 in California. 



Practically all of the 250,000 acres which will soon 

 be provided with water for irrigation is suited to fruit 

 growing; pears, apples, oranges, lemons, raisin, wine and 

 table grapes are being profitably grown on contiguous 

 irrigated areas. A great shipping trade has already been 

 established in apples and pears, which are carried from 

 here directly to the markets of Europe. Experiments are 

 now being made in the shipping to London of table 

 grapes and promise to be successful, and in supplying 

 Europe Australia will have great advantages over the 

 . Pacific slopes of the United States, because its fruits 

 come at the off season and because the expenditure in 

 railway freights in order to reach the ocean is far less. 

 The greatest possibilities of irrigation in Victoria are not, 

 however, in fruit growing, but in supplying hay and fod- 

 der to carry live stock through the dry months of sum- 

 mer, especially in years when lack of rain is long con- 

 tinued. A few geographic facts will make this apparent. 

 The continent of Australia has an area equal to the whole 

 of the United States; three-fourths of this is semi-arid, 

 well suited to pastoral industries, but unsuited to the 

 growing of other crops except small grain. It has, how- 

 ever, great advantages for growing live stock owing to 

 the mild climate in which winter is unknown and to the 

 abundance of nutritive grasses, which grow luxuriantly 

 during the spring and autumn months. The conditions 

 are very like what they would be in America if all the 

 live stock grown in the Mississippi valley had to depend 

 for its winter food supply on the hay crops grown in the 

 arid regions. 



Hay is one of the best paying crops in arid America 

 even when subjected to the competition of the humid and 

 fertile interior valley drained by the Mississippi and its 

 tributaries. But its possibilities are meager when com- 

 pared to the opportunity opening up to the farmer under 

 irrigation here. Where wool grown in the interior sells 

 for about double that grown in America, where the ex- 

 port trade in refrigerated meat is rapidly extending, and 

 where the dairy trade only waits to be released from the 

 vicissitudes of dry seasons to take a front rank in Euro- 

 pean markets. The extension of irrigation will accom- 

 plish this and will give to the Victorian alfalfa grown, the 

 market which in America is supplied by the growth of 

 both corn and hay. As a result of this extended and con- 

 stantly increasing demand the prices paid for alfalfa hay, 

 grown chiefly under irrigation, seemed at first incredible. 

 I found on my arrival in November, 1907, that 5 per ton 

 was being paid for loose alfalfa hay in the field where 

 cut, and this price rose before the end of the season to 



