20 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



the fiasco in point of attendance of the 1912 con- 

 gress." This correspondent brings out many other 

 facts that it will be as well perhaps to eliminate, but 

 among other features of the letter is the statement 

 that "the present secretary spends much of the time 

 for which he is paid to boost the Congress in writing 

 to former delegates letters of congratulation on their 

 birthdays, and a lot of other stuff little calculated 

 to advance the interests of this once strong organi- 

 zation." 



This correspondent, we fear, is rather harsh in 

 some of his criticisms, as there should not, for in- 

 stance, be any objection to Secretary Hooker writ- 

 ing letters of this character, in view of the fact that 

 they may please the recipients and at the same time 

 strengthen his wabbling fences. 



Jugding from the general tone of letters re- 

 ceived, it is time to protect and protest vigorously 

 against keeping a man in this office who has shown 

 so clearly his unfitness. 



slowly. The committee does not ask for or suggest 

 legislation, but its report shows that the irrigation 

 movement deserves to be stimulated by the federal 

 government as well as by the states in which the 

 arid lands lie. 



In these days of high prices, projects 

 Irrigation for reclaiming desert land and thus 



Increases increasing the supply of food de- 



Food serve special consideration. The 



Supply area under irrigation in our arid re- 



gion is now about 15,000,000 acres. 

 In seventeen years it has been doubled. This 

 watered land yields $200,000,000 worth of products 

 every year. Water is available for the irrigation of 

 40,000,000 acres more. Since the passage of the 

 Reclamation Act, fourteen years ago, the federal 

 government has expended more than $100,000,000 in 

 irrigation work. The money has come from sales 

 of public lands, and those who use the water pay 

 eventually the estimated cost of construction. 



The results of an inquiry about irrigation were 

 published recently by a committee of the United 

 States Chamber of Commerce. All agricultural 

 products, the committee says, can be grown more 

 successfully on irrigated land than elsewhere, the 

 average yield per acre exceeding that of non-irri- 

 gated farm areas by from 10 to 50 per cent. There 

 is scarcely any risk of loss. Crops are not exposed 

 to drought or destructive rainfall. They are not 

 attacked by insects, for the surrounding desert does 

 not breed these enemies. The committee points to 

 the Salt River project in Arizona as a typical ex- 

 ample of the excellent work which the federal gov- 

 ernment has done. There, what was a desert, is 

 now a garden, whose products are sold for about 

 $4,000,000 a year. 



It would be profitable for the nation to add to 

 the 15,000,000 now irrigated the 40,000,000 which 

 can in the same way be made equally productive. 

 Under present conditions the watered area grows 



Exception has been taken by the 

 Chairman Chamber of Commerce of Orland, 



Elwood California, to the recent report of . 



Mead the Committee on Revision, headed 



Criticized by Dr. Elwood Mead, in which the 



Orland project was, it is stated, 

 placed on a par with the many less successful irri- 

 gation districts in that state. It appears from word 

 received from California that the Los Molinos colony 

 has been pointed out in this report as one of the 

 most successful and satisfactory in that state. Or- 

 land settlers assert that this report makes it appear 

 that many of the local landholders have paid neither 

 the interest or any sums on the principal of the debt 

 on the property since the initial payment was made, 

 and they declare that this statement was entirely 

 unqualified and that a wrong impression as to the 

 situation has gone out as a result of the report of 

 the Committee on Revision, consequently Dr. Mead 

 is brought under criticism as chairman of that body. 

 In discussing this subject the Orland Register has 

 the following to say : 



"There were some who had not met their pay- 

 ments on their principal, but only because the men 

 holding their notes were so sure of their invest- 

 ments that they advised the landholder to take the 

 money and put it into cows or other farm improve- 

 ments so that he would be in a better position in 

 every way to make the deferred payments at a later 

 date. 



The fact that all maintenance charges and con- 

 struction charges have been paid with as astonish- 

 ing promptness with scarcely a delinquency, gives 

 the lie to the statement included in the report. The 

 report makes capital of a few minor instances in 

 order to make a case for the advocates of the 

 Australian land plan which, it is reported, will be 

 pushed before the legislature this winter, and which 

 it is the fond hope of those back of the plan will be 

 adopted by the State of California." 



This publication goes on to say that Orland is 

 in entire sympathy with the Australian plan and 

 that the Orland district should not be discredited in 

 such a sweeping statement when the facts show that 

 local private interests see fit to put into effect in so 

 far as they are able, this identical movement, viz.: 

 the plan of deferred payments and long-time loans 

 in order that the farmer may improve his acreage 

 to the highest point of development. 



The editor of the AGE is not sufficiently familiar 

 with recent work at either Orland or Los Molinos 

 to be able to discuss the quoted comparison of dis- 



