THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



183 



The inland waterways of the warring countries 

 of Europe are being used to their utmost limit, and 

 hundreds of miles of new canals have been built 

 since the war began. A new waterway 182 miles 

 long, connecting the Oder and the Vistula rivers, 

 have recently been opened to traffic, and 500-ton 

 boats can go direct from Berlin to Warsaw and to 

 the seaport of Dantzig. 



Germany has thousands of miles of canals and 

 rivers which have been made navigable, and are 

 being used for carrying heavy freight, leaving. the 

 railroads free to be used for the rapid transportation 

 of troops and food supplies. It is said that were it 

 not for her freight carrying inland waterways the 

 war would be over and Germany beaten because the 

 rapid movement of her troops from one front to 

 another would have been seriously impeded had 

 the railroads been occupied with heavy freight 

 shipments. 



During the period of time when railroads were 

 built and extended faster than traffic warranted, 

 they naturally opposed river improvements, fearing 

 water competition. But that time is passed forever. 

 The railroads can no longer handle the traffic offered 

 them and they welcome the passage of heavy freight 

 by water. River steamers now act in most cases as 

 feeders to railroads, gathering freight from points 

 which railroads often do not reach and delivering it 

 to them at terminals to be taken by rail to final 

 destination. Transportation facilities are the very 

 foundation of industrial prosperity, and the ad- 

 vantages of a complete and unified system of 

 internal land and water transportation is of in- 

 calculable advantage of any country. Cheap trans- 

 portation is as vital to industry and commerce as 

 ammunition to an army. 



With the increasing expense of government it is 

 ever becoming more difficult to secure appropria- 

 tions for river improvements. Why not avoid taxa- 

 tion by allowing private capital to perform the work 

 in return for the privilege of being permitted to de- 

 velop under public regulation the water powers now 

 wasting in those streams? 



Saving in Labor 



During 1915, 442,000.000 tons of bituminous coal 

 was mined, requiring the employment of 557,000 

 miners, from which it is apparent that the mining 

 of coal is at the rate of 1.26 employes per annum 

 per 1,000 tons of coal mined. Of the above quantity 

 ot coal mined, approximately 380,000,000 tons were 

 shipped on cars and required the use of about 800,- 

 000 gondola cars and 27,000 locomotives, and in the 

 way of labor in all of the branches of the railroad 

 serving the movement of this freight there were re- 

 quired approximately 388,000 men ; hence for every 

 1,000 tons of coal transported the services of 1.02 

 men were required to work a year. 



This coal finally landed in the ash pile, and we 

 find from statistics relating to employes in central 

 steam stations that for every 1,000 tons of coal con- 

 sumed there were required the services of half a man 

 for one year. Therefore the total labor required for 

 the consumption of every 1,000 tons of coal on the 

 basis of one year's time is 2.78 men. 



On the average, 1,000 tons of coal in the United 

 States produce 125 horsepower for a year of time ; 

 35,000.000 water horsepower developed and in com- 

 mission would save the necessity of mining 280,000- 



000 tons of coal per annum. As regards labor this 

 vast tonnage requires for its production, transporta- 

 tion and consumption 280,000 X 2.78 men, or 778,000 

 laborers of one kind and another. The amount of 

 labor required to operate this 35.000,000 water horse- 

 power may be put conservatively at 40,000 men. 

 Therefore the net saving in the way of labor alone 

 by the installation of this water horsepower would 

 be approximately 740,000 men available for other 

 industries. 



The above figures brought down to a state- 

 ment that can be easily remembered amount to this : 

 Every time 50 hydroelectric horsepower is developed 

 and put in commission one laborer is permanently 

 released for other uses. 



The foregoing figures are of themselves of great 

 moment with respect to the saving of labor, but 

 there is still another tremendous conservation that 

 has directly to do with the cost of food and to the 

 cost of many other needs of life. 



To transport 280,000,000 tons of coal there are 

 required among other things 600.000 freight cars 

 that cost about $1,200.000,000 and 20,000 locomo- 

 tives that cost about $400,000,000 more, and if we 

 add to the above figure other financial expenditures 

 that are necessary so that the freight cars and the 

 locomotives can do their work, we have as a result 

 around $1,920,000,000 of our railroad investment em- 

 ployed in the hauling of a commodity that could be 

 dispensed with entirely and this great amount of 

 equipment employed in the transportation of our 

 farm products, certainly at a less cost than now 

 obtains. 



The spectacle of hauling 280,000,000 tons of coal 

 (35,000,000 horsepower at 8 tons per year per horse- 

 power) over our railroads each year when we could 

 avoid so doing in a perfectly practical way is just as 

 foolish as would be a proposal to make the railroads 

 haul the salt water of the ocean on cars to interior 

 points and there evaporate it for the salt it contains 

 instead of using as we do the natural inland salt 

 deposits. 



Power in all its forms in the United States 

 has been steadily going downward in cost for many 

 years, yet in spite of this the average selling price 

 of hydroelectric power is about $10 per horsepower 

 per annum less than the price of the same unit by 

 steam. 



Production of Foods 



By increasing our annual use of fertilizer per 

 acre of cultivated land from 28 pounds to 100 pounds, 

 we can double our crops. How are we going to 

 secure this enormous amount of fertilizer? We are 

 now using 7,000,000 tons per annum and it would 

 require an additional 18,000,000 tons to bring up the 

 supply from 28 to 100 pounds per acre of cultivated 

 land. We have abundant supplies of phosphate rock, 

 both in the southern and in the far western states. 

 We are doing our best to produce potash in absence 

 of supplies from the natural potash beds of Ger- 

 many, but where shall we secure our nitrogen? We 

 are almost entirely dependent for our supplies upon 

 Chile, but the Chilean nitrate beds show signs of 

 exhaustion, and there are at present no available 

 ships to transport the product. 



It is here where the relation of water power to 

 food production comes in. It is now possible, 

 (Continued on page 188) 



