THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY 



Everything is clone in corporations" [co-operations ?]. 

 Each trade has its guild, elects its own officers, and 

 manages its own affairs. The people are a vast civic 

 army, subdivided into brigades, regiments, and com- 

 panies, all accustomed to discipline, learning the first 

 great lesson of life obedience." 



Professor E. W. Hilgard, the distinguished director of 

 the agricultural department of the University of Cali- 

 fornia, has brought this line of reasoning from physical 

 causes to industrial effects into direct application to our 

 subject. In a notable contribution to the Popular 

 Science Monthly he says : 



"As irrigation means heavy investments of capital or 

 labor, hence the co-operation of many and the construc- 

 tion of permanent works : it necessarily implies the cor- 

 relative existence of a stable social organization, with 

 protection for property rights, and (in view of the 

 complexity of the problem of proper and equitable dis- 

 tribution of water) a rather advanced appreciation of 

 the need and advantages of co-operative organization." 



It was in the course of an effort to account for the 

 singular preference of the founders of the most ancient 

 civilizations for arid lands, rather than for the forested 

 areas which have been the scenes of later development, 

 that Professor Hilgard made this expression of the 

 obvious effects of irrigation on industrial polity. A 

 little further on we shall see other interesting results of 

 his inquiry in this field. 



The quality of aridity is thus the most significant 

 among many striking contrasts which mark the western 

 half of the United States the field for future settle- 

 ment and development as fundamentally different 

 o 33 



