132 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



any other machine run by gasoline, is able to put the 

 quietus on a large number of gophers in a day. 

 There is no reason why the same treatment should 

 not help to get rid of prairie dogs where they are 

 plentiful enough to cause loss. 



The placing of an embargo on the 

 Concerning water of the Rio Grande river, north 

 Elephant of the Elephant Buttes, has given 



Butte rise to many complaints from the 



Dam settlers and promotors of various 



irrigation projects throughout north- 

 ern New Mexico and Colorado, where the stream has 

 its rise. The principal cause of dissatisfaction comes 

 from the fact that Texas, whose active citizens have 

 been at work since 1903 in che interest of this great 

 storage reservoir, has no right to ask for assistance 

 from the Federal government under the provisions 

 of the Reclamation Act, owing to the fact that all 

 public lands in Texas were held by the state and 

 disposed of for purely state purposes, hence there 

 was no so-called government land within its borders, 

 and as a consequence, it could not take advantage 

 of the provisions of the act, which instructs the 

 secretary of the interior, under Section 2 of that 

 act as follows : 



"That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby 

 authorized and directed to .make examinations and 

 surveys for, and to locate and construct, as herein 

 provided, irrigation works for the storage, division 

 and development of waters including artesian wells 

 and report to congress, etc., etc., and the location of 

 thje lands which can be irrigated therefrom, etc., etc." 



The Act also specifies the states to be included 

 in and benefited by the Act as follows: Arizona, 

 California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, 

 Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota. 

 Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washing- 

 ton and Wyoming. 



It will be noted by the foregoing that Texas, 

 owing to the condition, previously explained, has no 

 right to call upon the Federal government for assist- 

 ance under this Act, and a clear knowledge of this 

 condition stimulated the men of western Texas in 

 an effort to so construe this law as to permit the 

 storage of water from the Rio Grande river and its 

 tributaries to be used on the wonderfully fertile 

 soils along that stream in lower New Mexico, and 

 .at various points east of El Paso, Texas. 



This plan was worked out by bringing up an 

 alleged national and international debt to the Re- 

 public of Mexico. This angle gave the promotors 

 a good excuse to build this dam, which impounds 

 in its reservoir a quantity of water that is exceeded 

 in quantity by only one other artificial lake, the 

 Gatun lake at Panama. 



The feature that is objected to by New Mexico 



and Colorado people who are located on the Rio 

 Grande and its tributaries above the reservoir is 

 that it is not fair to deprive them of water that rises 

 in their respective states in order to pay an old and 

 contested international claim and to dole out water 

 to the people in Texas, who have never been en- 

 titled to recognition under the Reclamation Act. 



A movement is now on foot to relieve the 

 people of New Mexico of every charge for the cost 

 of the project. They claim that New Mexico should 

 be reimbursed by the United States government by 

 permitting its land owners under government proj- 

 ects in New Mexico to acquire water rights free of 

 cost, and that the land be charged only with main- 

 tenance and not construction cost. 



Some day we will attempt to give a history of 

 the negotiations between the government officials 

 and the people of Texas, leading up to the present 

 condition. 



That the attitude of the people of New Mexico 

 have taken is not unreasonable, is the opinion of all 

 who are familiar with the details. What Colorado 

 people may decide to do in this connection is prob- 

 lematical, but they will no doubt be governed by 

 the result of New Mexico's effort to place the ex- 

 pense on the shoulders of those most greatly bene- 

 fited. 



The quantity of water necessary for 

 Duty of irrigation is being generally dis- 



Water cussed by the papers in newly irri- 



In gated sections of the West, and as 



Irrigation there is a variance of opinion and the 



query is also common in the older 

 irrigated sections, we herewith quote from a recent 

 interview with Prof. G. E. Smith of the University 

 of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station : 



"One might as well ask what size should mens' 

 shoes or hats be made," says the Professor. "The 

 size depends very much on the man. A recent ar- 

 ticle, widely copied in the press, states that two feet 

 total depth of irrigation per year is the right amount 

 for three-fourths of our irrigation projects. This is 

 a careless statement, likely to lead to much error 

 on the part of farmers and the promoters of irriga- 

 tion projects. More attention must be given to 

 local conditions in discussions on the duty of water. 

 The length of the growing season, the character of 

 the soil, the kind of crop, and other factors, cause 

 the proper duty of water to vary between wide 

 limits, even in a single state. 



"In Arizona the duty of water for alfalfa ap- 

 pears to vary from one foot total depth per year at 

 Lakesilde in Navajo county, to six feet total depth 

 per year in the Yuma valley. Even in the same 

 locality the proper duty varies considerably. In the 

 vicinity of Tucson the sandy loam soils appear to 



