AND THEIR RELATION TO IRRIGATION. 
7 
the water supply, the value of water constantly increases. 
That the sinking of wells for this purpose is practicable is 
witnessed by the experience of many countries besides 
our own. In some portions of China it has been prac¬ 
ticed from early ages. India derives no small portion of 
her supply from wells. The French have sunk many 
wells in the Algerian Sahara, and around these spots the 
desert gives way to garden spots. Some 60,000 acres are 
irrigated from them in California. Whether the sinking 
of wells for this purpose is economically practicable or not, 
will evidently depend upon the cost of sinking and upon 
the amount of water to be obtained, and the cost w ill 
depend upon the depth as well as upon the character of 
the strata which it is necessary to, pass through. 
As to how much one might venture, opinions would 
naturallv differ, but the value of water in this State is 
indicated by the price of the water rights. In the older 
settled districts, the water right for eighty acres rarely 
brings less than $1,200, even in some of the ditches 
which do not have water in times of scarcity. Such 
a right generally means 1.44 cubic feet of water 
per second. This is considerably reduced, except 
in periods of high water, so that the amount actually 
received, as a rule, is but a small fraction of the 
nominal amount. Assuming the flow to be the full 
amount, the prices for the rights would be about $780 
per second foot; but based on the actual amount of water 
received, they would probably be four times that. As 
an indication of the value of water in a community 
older than the average in Colorado, there are one or two 
instances in the Greeley community, where farming has 
now been carried on for twenty years. One landowner, 
Governor Eaton, drained a few years since a piece of land 
which had become soggy and wet. The drainage, which 
formed a constant stream, was wasted for some time in 
