498 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
Measured by the yardstick of the financier—the dollar—the results 
of the Reclamation Service activities are interesting. 
As a creator of wealth, its service to the Nation and the State has 
been as great as in its principal task of home making. Out of the 
uninhabited and almost worthless desert it has carved an empire of 
nearly 2,000,000 acres intensively cultivated, and producing crops 
whose annual average gross returns per acre are about double those 
for the rest of the country. 
Since the first Government ditch began turning its waters upon 
the land, in 1905, the crops produced on the reclaimed lands have 
had a total value of more than $250,000,000. The present annual 
crop returns are now nearly $90,000,000, not including the value of 
crops grown on the million acres outside of projects which are sup- 
plied with stored water. 
The increase in land values has been enormous. In 1902, the 
beginning of Government irrigation, the average value of the desert 
lands in the projects did not exceed $10 per acre. The total value, 
therefore, of the 1,780,000 acres in Government projects did not 
exceed $17,800,000. 
Government irrigation has increased the value of the project lands 
$200 per acre, or a total of $356,000,000. It has increased the value 
of the 1,000,000 acres in other projects by $100 per acre, or $100,000,- 
000. The increase in the value of land in the cities, towns, and 
villages within projects is easily $100,000,000, or a total increase in 
land values of $556,000,000, due to this work. 
In connection with the above summary no consideration has been 
given to 1,188,000 acres of land included in Government projects 
which will be irrigated when the engineering works are completed, 
the present market price of which has increased at least $50 per acre 
by reason of this fact. 
The increase in the price received for State lands included in the 
projects and now mostly disposed of was at least $3,000,000 of direct 
revenue derived by the States. 
Dividing the acreage reclaimed—1,/80,000—into the net cost of 
the works of $122,645,000, we have a cost of approximately $69 per 
acre for the lands in reclamation projects to which the Government 
can now deliver water. This cost, however, includes the cost of 
serving stored water to about 1,000,000 acres of land under the 
Warren Act. If these lands be included, the average expenditure 
per acre benefited is less than $45 per acre, and this cost includes 
large storage works and canals useful for future reclamation on 
projects now being completed, the utilization of which will further 
reduce these fea of cost. 
