THE INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY VOLUME VI. DECEMBER-MARCH, 1903. BURLINGTON, VERMONT, 1903. THE INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY September-December MDCCCCII THE GROWTH OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN WATER ELWOOD MEAD CHIEF OF IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS, UNITED STATES HE census of 1900 shows that more than seven and one T half million acres of what was once part of the American Desert are now being cultivated by irrigation. The moisture which clouds fail to furnish has been taken from streams. The farms thus created are among the highest priced and most productive on the continent, but their value does not inhere in the soil. Because land is abundant and water scarce, it is the stream which is important, and water rights rather than land titles determine both the prosperity and the price of the irrigated farm. Land near Riverside, California, with a water right, has sold for one thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars an acre. The same kind of land in the immediate neighborhood, but not susceptible of irrigation, would not sell for ten dollars an acre. This immense difference in values is due to the difference in production. The irrigated acre will grow oranges; the unirrigated, cactus and stunted grass. On many irrigated acres near Greeley, Colorado, the crops grown last year sold for one hundred dollars. These acres were below the ditch. Above the ditch twenty acres of the same land, unirrigated, did not grow enough grass to support a steer. The irrigated acre is no more fertile than the unirrigated one, yet it sells for one hundred dollars while the unirrigated one is not worth the government price of one dollar and twentyfive cents. A shifting of the water right from the irrigated to the unirrigated acre would exactly reverse these values. Copyright, 1902, Frederick A. Richardson. |