Amador ledger., 1900-09-14
SALVATION ARMY lRRIeAToRs.
Irrigation Engineer from the Punjab to
Inspect Our Methods

Inspect Our Methods
The irrigation farms of the Salvation
Army are attracting considerable no.
tice. In Colorado the Army has one
farm of thousand acres and is about
to add another thousand. 1t has an
other'farm in California and the move
ment generally is looked upon as of
some economic Importance
Commander Booth Tucker invited
his friend E. A. Pargiter, govern
ment irrigation engineer of the Punjab,
India, to visit the irrigation farms of
the Salvation Army and Mr.. Pargiter
is now in this country on two years
leave of absence.
II intend also to study irrigation in
the United States for my own benefit"
said Mr.. Pargiter in an interview at
San Francisco. "Methods and condi-
tions here are quite different from in
India, where l have been connected
with the Public Works for some fifteen
years.
Mr.. Partiger upheld the Indian gov
ernment in its treatment of the famine
question. India" he said, ''has re-
claimed vast areas through building
permanent irrigation works for the
watering of arid lands which cannot
grow crops without irrigation, and
this has wonderfully improved the con-
dition of the people living in those
districts. There are now about ), 900, :
acres benefited by system of irriga-
tion works.
GOVERNMENT CONTROL.
Irrigation is under government
control in India. This has proved by
far the most satisfactory method and
the best for the people. There have
been many large private irrigation pro-
jects- but the government has found it
necessary sooner or later to control
them for the reason that investments
in large irrigation enterprises do not
yield an immediate return on the
money and private capital is not will
ing TO wait eight or ten or even fifteen
years for all investment to begin to
pay. But the government can wait,
and finally will secure good interest on
It's money. Some of the districts re-
turn a profit to the government as
high as 20 and Is per cent. Rice and
sugar land is charged for irrigation
about So per acre. The charge for
cotton lands is 81. For wheat and
barley lands 81 is the charge.
THE FAMINE.
Irrigation can hardly solve the
famine question for the reason that
the famines occur in regions where
some years there is ample rainfall for
the crops. The drouth comes along
generally about once in ten years and
while an irrigation system would avert
trouble for that year, during the other
nine years it would not be patronized.
The stricken districts have suffered
drought for three years in succession
this time, something which will prob
ably never happen again for fifty or
one hundred years. When it rains in
those districts there is more than
enough of it. Irrigation is then utter
ly of no use. "
STORAGE RESERvOIRS-PRoSP
Colorado should be the greatest
agricultural state in the west In its
sandy plains and valleys there is as
much gold as in it's mountains. The
only difference is in the process of get
ting it out. For the one the plow and
the harvester are used. For the other
the pick and drill are necessary. Colo
rado needs more farmers. A thickly
settled agricultural region builds up
cities. 1t makes a prosperous state"
Denver "Times. -
And this possibility of upbuilding
and development through agriculture
will apply to all the great arid west as
soon as its land shall have been re-
claimed and made productive through
the construction of great storage res
ervoirs and the conservation of the
vast volumes of water which now flow
uselessly to the sea.
BUILD THE RESERVOIRS.
In his last annual report the Secre-
tary of the Interior, referring to the
arid lands of the West, says:
''That this vast acreage, capable of
sustaining and comfortably supporting,
under proper system of irrigation,
a population of at least $4,000, 600 peo-
pie, should remain practically desert,
is not in harmony with the progress of
the age or in keeping with the posi-
bilities of the future" The federal
government should devote a portion of
it's annual river and harbor appropria-
tion to the building of the great stor-
age reservoirs, the surveys for which
have been made by the Geological
Survey.
MEXICAN IRRIGATION.
The extensive arid regions of north
ern Mexico, are, it is reported, to be
irrigated by canals through aid ex-
tended by the Mexican federal and