Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/355

 deprecates the introduction of irrigation into the United States, or says that on this account it should be surrounded by great safeguards. He cited instances in Europe, as in the valley of the Po, where the tendency of irrigation had been to wipe out small land holdings, and bring the lands into the hands of a few of the nobility. He cited but one country where the reverse had been the rule, which was in the south and east of Spain, and pointed out the reason, as he conceived it, that in south and southeastern Spain the ownership of the water went with the land and was inseparable from it, under ancient Moorish rights. It is a fact, that where the ownership of water goes with the land, it prevents centering of land ownership into few hands, after that ownership is once divided among many persons, in irrigated regions. But Mr. Marsh overlooked one thing in predicting harm in our country; that is, that it will be many years before we will get such a surplus of poor as to bring about the result he feared. In California, the effect of irrigation has not been to center the land in the hands of a few. On the contrary, the tendency has been just the other way. When irrigation was introduced it became possible for small land holders to live. In Fresno county, there are many people making a living for a family, each on 20 acres of irrigated land, and the country is divided into 20 and 40-acre tracts and owned in that way. In San Bernardino the same state of things prevails. Before irrigation, these lands were owned in large tracts, and it was not an uncommon thing for one owner to have 10,000 to 20,000 acres of land. So that the rule in California, which is the effect of irrigation, is to divide land holdings into small tracts, and in this respect, also, irrigation is a blessing to the country. It enables large owners to cut up their lands and sell out to the many. Land values have advanced from $1.25 in this great valley to $50, $150 and even $250 per acre, simply by attaching to the land the right to take or use water, paying in addition an annual rental in the southern portion of the State, they have advanced from $5 and $10 to $500 and even. $1000 an acre, where the land has the right to water; and many calculations have been made and examples cited by intelligent and prominent people, to show that good orange land or good raisin-grape land with sufficient water supply is well worth $1000 an acre. Water rights run up proportionately in value. A little stream flowing an inch of water—an amount that will flow through an inch square opening under four inches of pressure—in the