184 



THE IRRIGATION A G K . 



accident that railroad accounts have been reduced to a 

 standard so that each company keeps accounts essentially 

 similar to those kept by all other companies. It did not 

 happen that bank statements came to be presented in the 

 same form the country over. It was not by chance that in- 

 surance companies came to use identical methods. Nor as 

 some may think, were these results brought about solely by 

 the imposition of governmental control. It is true that 

 national banks were required to report in a standard way, but 

 the state and private banks adopted the same forms, not from 

 necessity, but for self interest. Railroad accounts have been 

 developed along identical lines, not because of governmental 

 control, which is a very recent development in this matter of 

 accounting, but because the accounting officers of the railroads 

 have been working together, each contributing what he had 

 found valuable and giving this to the others through the 

 medium of their national association. Before there was any 

 public service corporation legislation, the accounts of gas, 

 electric light, water and traction companies had grown to be 

 so nearly uniform, that many companies made but little change 

 in methods in complying with the requirements of the public 

 utility laws when enacted. 



And there was a reason for this uniformity. By it each 

 company had the opportunity of comparing or contrasting the 

 effectiveness of its own methods with the results obtained 

 by others, all tending to the highest efficiency and economy. 

 This reason should be just as potent in the irrigation industry. 

 What are the best and cheapest forms of organization and 

 methods of work? Who knows. Ten years ago there was 

 probably not a single contracting organization in the country 

 that was attempting to analyze its construction costs. When 

 a job was completed the contractor knew how much he had 

 gained or lost; while it was going on he guessed conditions 

 as he had originally in bidding on the work. Today, con- 

 tractors are endeavoring to ascertain costs as the work pro- 

 gresses so that costly methods may be abandoned for more 

 economical ones, and the final balance brought on the right 

 side of the loss and gain account. But someone says, "We let 

 all our work by contract and do no actual construction our- 

 selves." Very well, but what of the future costs of main- 

 tenance? Are they being fixed upon a basis of accurate in- 

 formation or of hopeful guesses? I venture the surmise that 

 90 per cent of the maintenance charges have been made 

 upon no better basis than a sheer guess with an eye always 

 to what the other fellow charges. Ten years of good ac- 

 counting should give us a vastly better method of forecasting 

 maintenance charges upon different classes of work and under 

 varying conditions. 



But there was another reason why these older lines of 

 industry developed similar accounts and adopted standard 

 forms of reports. They found that thereby they could more 

 readily market their securities when additional capital was re- 

 quired. A railroad or public utility which should go into the 

 money market for a loan or to sell an issue of bonds, and 

 which was unable or unwilling to exhiibt balance sheets, 

 statements of operating expenses and fixed charges, of gross 

 and net earnings and gross and net income, would probably 

 conclude that the money market was very tight. But your 

 situation is likely to be about that unless you adopt the 

 methods which obtain in these- other lines of business. I 

 have seen a letter from an eastern broker to an irrigation 

 company, whose securities he was attempting to place, in 

 which he asked- the company's officers to stop writing in terms 

 of glittering generalities about their scheme but to send 

 him statements of figures, adding: "Nothing else goes 

 in this town." 



Reclamation Notes 



CALIFORNIA. 



The Balfour-Guthrie Company of Stockton has pur- 

 chased 5,000 acres of land near Byron in Contra Costa 

 county, and will divide the land into a new irrigation dis- 

 trict. According to reports, plans for the formation of 

 the district are well under way. The proposed district 

 will irrigate 11,000 acres of land. Farmers are co-operat- 

 ing in the project and the boundaries of the district may 

 be extended to include additional lands. Water will be 

 taken from Indian slough for irrigation purposes. 



The settlers and land owners of Honey Lake Valley 

 held a mass meeiing March 2 for the purpose of taking 

 steps to place before the National Government devel- 

 opment of an irrigation system for the land surrounding 

 Honey Lake. There are 168,000 acres of irrigable land, 

 a large part of which has been taken up by the farmers. 

 According to the plan proposed Eagle Lake will be 

 tapped by means of a tunnel. 



Stratford farmers have formed a company which will 

 take care of the irrigation of the ranches of the mem- 

 bers. Articles of incorporation have been filed by the 

 Mercedes Pumping Company. The principal place of 

 business will be Stratford. The capital stock of the com- 

 pany is $5,000, divided into 5,000 shares of $1 each. It is. 

 the purpose of the company to bore artesian wells, run 

 ditches and perform such other work as is usually per- 

 formed by irrigation companies. 



An irrigation district embracing 128,440 acres has been 

 formed by the farmers of Big and Little Shasta Valleys. 

 Water will be brought from Klamath River through a 

 twenty-mile canal and distributed throughout the valley 

 with many miles of laterals. 



The board of directors of the Modesto irrigation dis- 

 trict have called a special election to vote an assessment 

 of $20,300 to complete work on the upper canal and to 

 pay the running expenses of the district until August 1. 

 The money will not be collected until the taxes are 

 paid. 



The Sacramento Valley Irrigation Company has pur- 

 chased 6,500 acres of land known as the Edgar Mills 

 ranch, located about three miles west of Maxwell, for 

 $200,000. 



A big land sale involving the sale of 5,500 acres of 

 the Sharon estate just over the line in Madera county, 

 and 8,500 acres owned by other parties lying adjacent to 

 it, has been consummated. The purchaser is the Co- 

 Operative Land & Trust Company of San Franciso, with 

 a branch office at Merced. The land will be divided 

 into small farms. Water for irrigation is secured by 

 pumping. The lift is short and the supply of water ap- 

 parently inexhaustible. The main line of the Southern 

 Pacific Railroad cuts the new colony in half. A town- 

 ship named "Fairmead" has been plotted near the center 

 of the colony. 



The Superior Land & Water Company of Woodford 

 is installing a pumping plant which will supply water 

 to 2,200 acres. The pumps are to be in place by the last 

 of April and planting will begin on a large part of the 

 land in May and June. 



Contract for the construction of sections 3 and 5 of 

 the main canal of the South San Joaquin Irrigation Dis- 

 trict has been awarded to T. K. Beard of Modesto. His 

 bid was $507,365. The contract for section 4, a large 

 flume, was let to the Pacific Construction Company on 

 its bid of $53,715. Contracts have now been let for all 

 the work needed to bring the water to the eastern 



