244 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



AUSTRALIA SORRY TO LOSE ELWOOD MEAD 



A USTRALIA papers pay glowiii;/ tribute to Elwood 

 ** Mead, who has resigned as chairman of the State 

 Hirers and Water Supply Commission of Victoria to 

 return to the United States to act as chairman of the 

 final board of review on the revaluations of the Fed- 

 eral projects. The Bendigo Advertiser says: 



In alluding to Mr. Mead's resignation, the Pre- 

 mier (Sir Alex. Peacock) expressed regret that Vic- 

 toria was to lose the services of an expert irrigationist 

 of such a marked character as 

 Mr. Mead had proved himself 

 to be. Mr. Mead combined a 

 remarkable ability in irrigation 

 matters with a personality that 

 had made him popular with 

 everyone with whom he had 

 come in contact. 



Mr. Hutchinson also ex- 

 pressed sincere regret. He 

 said that Mr. Mead had been 

 identified so closely with irri- 

 gation development in Victoria 

 that his departure would be a 

 severe blow to such work. 

 Some compensation would be 

 afforded by the fact that Mr. 

 Mead's methods and organiza- 

 tion would remain. These 

 could not fail to be of use in future work. 



Mr. Mead's salary was 2,000 ($10,000) a year. 



The same newspaper says editorially: 



When Mr. Mead has gone, the people of this 

 state will see, as the distance of time lengthens, his 

 greatness as an irrigation expert in increasing pro- 

 portions. Even now he has become regarded as almost 

 indispensable to the success of the irrigation venture 

 of this state. Else such pressure would not have been 

 put upon him to stay in Victoria when he was offered 

 a professorship in California University a year or so 

 ago. Else such universal satisfaction would not have 

 been expressed when he announced his intention to 

 remain here. 



Yet no man in the history of the development of 

 this state has had such a trying experience as had Mr. 

 Mead, and in such a short space of time. Only a man 

 with a calm mental and strong physical make-up like 

 that of Mr. Mead could have withstood the strain, 

 and suffered the wear and tear without a complete 

 physical and mental collapse. Behind the steady coun- 

 tenance and beneath the solid frame only Mr. Mead 

 knows to what extent his health has been impaired. 

 In recent months when the heavens were as brass, 

 when people who had contracted for water and could 

 not be supplied, when people who had no water rights 

 pleaded in the name of humanity, and sometimes in the 

 name of the Deity, for water for their human kind, 

 as well as their stock, and could get none, when not a 

 few settlers were "biting the hand" that fed them, 

 when a section of the press and an increasing number 

 of politicians were casting their eyes upon him as a 

 scapegoat for the irrigation misfortunes, it is not to 

 be wondered that his grey hairs were thickening and 

 his step was not so elastic. 



Irrigating vegetables with a Lauson pumping plant 

 in the San Joaauin valley of California. 



He came to this state to find that irrigation had 

 been started altogether on wrong lines. He found 

 that the water storages were entirely inadequate, and 

 that the water channels had been stretched out from 

 those storages to inordinate distances. He found that 

 the landholders only appreciated the irrigation system 

 to the extent of ensuring them water in time of 

 drought. In normal years they did not want it, and 

 were little disposed to pay what may be regarded as 

 "an insurance p r e m i u m" 

 against complete failure in 

 drought time. In short, there 

 had been too much politics and 

 too little expert engineering in 

 the whole system. 



Mr. Mead saw these diffi- 

 culties standing out with un- 

 compromising boldness. I lad 

 he foreseen the fierceness of 

 the fight when he tackled it, he, 

 indeed, had a stout heart and 

 much more optimism than he 

 was generally credited with 

 and that was a great deal. The 

 first pitched fights in this battle 

 were with the large landhold- 

 ers, who wished to remain in 

 undisturbed possession of iheir 

 broad and almost innumerable- 

 acres, and follow their conservative ways. Mr. Mead 

 soon showed his strength. He induced the legislature 

 to make an unprecedented departure in effecting closer 

 settlement in this state in the matter of irrigation. 

 When he put a ring round a certain area on the map of 

 Northern Victoria or the Goulburn Valley, and called 

 it an irrigation district, in spite of the protests of the 

 large landholders, there was no need for the state to- 

 enter into unequal bargaining with the landholders 

 to purchase land for closer settlement. Why? Be- 

 cause Mr. Mead had prevailed upon the legislature 

 to introduce what may be termed an automatic closer 

 settling machine. It was the compulsory water charge 

 amounting in the fourth year, and for every year 

 thereafter to 5s and 6s per acre. For that charge the 

 Water Commission guaranteed to supply one acre foot 

 of water, in other words, sufficient water to cover, an- 

 acre with water 1 foot in depth. Thus it did not pay a 

 large landholder to hold more acres than he could 

 work under the intenser form of agriculture brought 

 about by irrigation. Thus he sold his surplus acres, 

 and thus closer settlement was achieved. It was only 

 in those cases where the commission thought it neces- 

 sary to hasten the movement even more quickly that 

 land was bought from the old landholders. That the 

 commission did not buy badly is proved by the fre- 

 quency of cases in which the original landholders have- 

 returned and bought irrigation blocks in their old 

 farms at 5 and upwards additional per acre to the 

 price at which they had sold to the commissioner. 



Not far from Tongala, and in many other places, 



large landholders would scarcely give Mr. Mead a 



hearing when addressing them on the advantages of 



worse was often feared. But Mr. Mead would calmly 



(Continued on page 250) 



