THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



in the market, and there have been years when the crop 

 has returned a million dollars to the potato districts of 

 which the colony is the centre. The farmers invented a 

 pool system which frequently enabled them to control 

 the output, and so influence prices in their favor. 



Events proved that the colonists were gainers by reason 

 of the trials and disappointments which attended the 

 establishment of their industrial life. Though the cost 

 of their canals had so far outrun their expectations, they 

 obtained their water supply much cheaper than did sub- 

 sequent communities who patronized private companies. 

 At Greeley the cost of a water-right for eighty acres was 

 three hundred and fifty dollars. This made the user a 

 proportionate owner of the works. Where canals wove 

 private, settlers paid twelve hundred dollars for precisely 

 the same amount of water, while the works remained the 

 property of a foreign corporation. The difference in the 

 price of water under the two systems represented a very 

 handsome dividend for those who had persisted in their 

 allegiance to the co-operative principle. In the same 

 way, the colonists profited from their struggle to realize 

 the best agricultural methods. They won a reputation 

 for their products which possessed actual commercial 

 value, and they became the teachers of irrigation, furnish- 

 ing practical examples to students of the subject and 

 contributing largely to its literature. These results must 

 be credited to the fact that the community was organized, 

 and that the people acted with a common impulse. 



Passing now from the industrial to the civic side of the 

 colony life, we find that the high public spirit in which 

 the community was conceived left its marks not less in- 

 delibly. In the original prospectus Mr. Meeker had 



