The World's Production and Consumption of Food. 141 
summer, owing to the complete appropriation of the water by canals 
opening from such streams nearer their source. In seasons of excessive 
drouth and deficient snowfall the water available is lessened one-half 
or more ; hence irrigation from the water flowing in such streams 
has about reached its limit. This is notably true of the Platte, 
Arkansas, Cimarron, and Rio Grande. 
“ Many schemes have been proposed for utilising the water said 
to flow below the sand in the valleys, but such projects involve im- 
mense outlays, are as yet unfruitful, and, it is generally believed, 
will long remain so. Should such plans, however, ultimately prove 
successful, the resulting supply would sufiice to irrigate but an in- 
considerable fraction of the arid lands, being rarely applicable out- 
side the immediate vicinity of the streams. 
“ The regions where irrigation is a condition precedent to suc- 
cessful agriculture include an area of some 784,000,000 acres, of 
which, owing to scarcity of water and lack of soil, not more than five 
per cent, is susceptible of cultivation ; and there is no satisfactory 
evidence that water can be obtained to irrigate the half of five per 
cent. The construction of extensive irrigation works necessitates 
the expenditure of much money and takes long periods of time, and 
few of those now living will see the completion of such works as 
will be required to irrigate the 30,000,000 acres of arid lands which 
the Public Land Commission estimates as irrigable from existing 
supplies of water.” 
Irrigation works, on a scale at once costly and extensive, have 
been carried out in Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and various other 
States within the arid belt, and, in these places, “ water rights,” with 
an adequate supply for the inevitable dry season of every year, are 
properly regarded as of more value than the land which is served by 
them, for without water the land is a literal Sahara in time of drouth. 
Such works are evidence of the growing scarcity of unoccupied land 
that, under any circumstances, may be fit for cultivation, for it may 
be safely assumed that men will not incur the labour and cost of 
making huge reservoirs, and an intricate network of canals, so long 
as there is land to be taken up that is fertile without these expensive 
preliminaries. 
Further evidence which goes to prove the scarcity of unappro- 
priated land worth having for cultivation is found in the thousands 
of would-be settlers who camp for weeks and even months, ready for 
a rush, on the borders of reservations which are expected to be 
declared open for settlement. This sort of thing occurs only in the 
United States, and, indeed, can only occur there at present, though 
in the future it may possibly do so in respect of Indian reservations 
in the North-West of Canada. Assuming the substantial approxi- 
mation to correctness of Mr. Davis’s statistics and arguments, it 
would seem extremely probable that American competition in feed- 
ing-stufis has very nearly reached the limit of its expansion ; and 
in this event, the importance of which is supreme in view of a 
population rapidly increasing, we may well pause to consider what 
the future has in store, and what will be the effect on British agri- 
