310 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
certain number of cubic feet per second for each section of laud. An 
annual tax, also, should be levied for the maintenance of the works. 
This would be a mere trifle compared with the original cost of the 
water-rights. 
By thus taking the matter in hand, the general government will not 
only promote the welfare of the country by largely increasing its pro- 
ductive capacity, but will increase its own returns from the public lands 
immensely. It might, if properly managed, be an extremely piofitable 
specula! ion for the government. 
The cost of irrigation per acre differs materially in the various sec- 
tions of the "West. <>u inn to the greater or less expenditure required foi 
bringing the water to the land, and also, of course, according to the 
amount of water used. The general range is from $1 to $3 per acre an- 
nually, and the average is not far from $2. As a general thing, the 
water is supplied to ranchmen by ditch companies, who charge them a 
fixed price per year. The unit of measurement is commonly the 
"miner's inch." though this is gradually giving waj to the simpler unit 
of the "second foot." Many companies, however, charge by the acre, 
ranging their rates with the different crops cultivated. 
We have already laid stress on the importance of increased settle- 
ment and cultivation of the Northwest as a means of checking locust 
increase and of preventing the disastrous incursions of these devouring 
pests into the more moist and fertile Mississippi States; but as irriga- 
tion is, in the larger portion of the region, absolutely indispensable to 
this settlement by an agricultural population, its importance cannot be 
overestimated. As will be seen from our First Report, irrigation has not 
only this important indirect bearing on the locust question; it has also 
a direct bearing, for it affords one of the chief and most satisfactory 
means of destroying the young locusts, either by drowning them out, 
as in submersion, or by killing them with keroseue floated down the 
ditches. It is therefore by encouraging and extending irrigation that 
the national government can most satisfactorily act so as to perma- 
nently lessen the locust evil, and we cannot too strongly urge upon Con 
gress the desirability of wise and patriotic action in the matter. So 
important, indeed, do we deem this question of irrigation that we have 
endeavored to get at some approximate estimate: first, of the amount 
of laud redeemable by it; second, of the cost of redeeming said land: 
third, of the best plans to be pursued. Upon these and other points 
we have obtained the following report from Henry Gannett, E. M., 
whose experience adds weight and importauce to his views: 
To illustrate the great value of water iu the arid region, we may say that a contin- 
uous flow of oue cubic foot of water per second, throughout the growing season, mean* 
200 acres of land saved from the desert ; it means, also, 30 bushels of wheat per acre, 
a total of 6,000 bushels, worth perhaps $4,500. The utmost economy in the use of 
water is, then, the great desideratum, as every cubic foot saved insures to agriculture 
200 acres, more or less, of the best of laud. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the 
system, or rather want of system, at present in vogue in this region is decidedly the 
