Irrigation Institutions

Abstract

THIS work was originally prepared for a course of lectures on the institutions and practice of irrigation for the University of California. The author is of opinion that the land in the United States that has hitherto been relied on to meet the demands of thenation's growth will not much longer be. available for this purpose, so rapid has been the increase population during the last few years. It is anticipated that at the end of the next half century there will be 200 million people to feed. It has for some time past been recognised that the arid regions of the West, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, consisting of enormous areas of barren sands broken only by patches of yuccas and sage bushes, becomes, if irrigated, capable of growing crops of all kinds and in the greatest luxuriance. Already where irrigation has been applied, the traveller almost suddenly passes from a desplate and an apparently worthless region to a land of plenty, and is confronted by orchards and gardens which resemble the century old creations of France and Italy, with homes rivalling in taste and convenience those of the eastern States. The climate, though arid, is remarkably healthy, the heat of the southern summers and the cold of the northern winters being mitigated by the dryness of the atmosphere. The mountains and valleys of this district are recognised as natural sanitaria, to which thousands of persons resort in order to live. The arid land, when irrigated, is capable of producing crops worth 20l. an acre. Oranges and grapes grow and ripen abundantly, and in Southern California an orange grove of twenty acres constitutes an estate.

Irrigation Institutions.

A Discussion of the Economic and Legal Questions created by the Growth of Irrigated Agriculture in the West. By Elwood Mead. Pp. xi + 392. (New York: The Mac-millan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1903.) Price 5s. net.