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Show MEASURE ALL WATER Study of Irrigation Is Necessary for Future Success. Measurement and Keeping of Records of Flow of Streams, If Done Right, Is Job for Man of High Technical Tech-nical Training. (By RICHARD R. LYMAN, Trofcssor of Engineering. University of Utah.) A financier has said, "No man ever fails in business who keeps careful accounts." ac-counts." The wise sayings and writings writ-ings of great men are not the products of little effort, they are not things that have come in an impromptu fashion, they are the results of long training, studious effort, and a careful making and keeping of records. Great books grow; they do not come into the minds of their authors as pictures are thrown upon a screen. A thought Is elaborated into a paragraph, a paragraph para-graph into a chapter, a chapter into an essay, and the essay Is elaborated into the great epoch making piece of fiction, or the classic mathematical or scientific work, so wonderfully Illuminated Illumi-nated with the divine spark that it shines on indefinitely. If the work of irrigation is to grow, if out of it the greatest possible good is to come, we must study its past; we of today must profit by the failures fail-ures of yesterday. Water, in the west at least, represents repre-sents money counted in untold millions. mil-lions. If a banker were to handle cash of one one-thousandth part of this value without keeping accounts, without with-out making records, that banker would find himself very quickly in the clutches of the law. It is as important to know and to keep a record of the amount of water that flows in a stream, to know to whom this water belongs, and to whom and in what quantities It is distributed, as it is to keep a record of the amount of gold a mine produces, the amount of cash a bank handles, to whom this wealth belongs, and how, to whom, and in what quantities it is distributed. You ask, "Who should measure this water?" I ask, "Who should keep the records in the bank?" An expert is always required in the latter case, and an expert should be required in the-other the-other case also. The expert is always used in the bank, where the values are definite and the problem correspondingly correspond-ingly simple, while, as a rule, nobody is employed in the other case. Where water measurements are taken, however, how-ever, and records are kept, the person per-son employed is often wholly untrained, un-trained, for this or any other technical Is as important to keep a record of the flow of water in the streams and in the canals, and ditches, as it is to keep the books of a bank. You who are at the head of great irrigation irriga-tion projects should come to this convention con-vention with reports containing information, infor-mation, found in the records of your project and reading something like this: "The land irrigated under the canals of the irrigation project I rep- ' resent is a heavy clay of great depth. For twenty years water to the amount of one acre foot per acre per season has been used on this soil, but It has been hardly sufficient to produce the best results. For the same length of time one and one-half acre feet of water has been used on another section sec-tion of the project with Detter results, while where two acre feet of water has been used, the land has become wafer-logged and ruined. Since there is but one crop of land a fact so frequently fre-quently referred to is it not a shame that much of it is thus being and haa been rendered valueless? While everyone every-one can see that too much water has been used, no one can come forward and say how much in acre feet this excess has been. Where are the expert irrigation engineers en-gineers who have this information? If there are any such they are few indeed. Those who own farms think generally that they are economical, when they io their farming without employing engineers. As well try to build a house without an architect, conduct a school without a teacher, or a ship without a seaman, as to con- j duct an irrigation project of any con- j slderable consequence without an el- I pert irrigation engineer. As the day I has passed for that man who is not I capable of doing any other kind of I work to be chosen to teach the school, f as that day has passed in which every man makes his own shoes, as that day has passed in which every man builds his own house, so that day has passed and gone forever in which a man, who Is too old or too stupid to be otherwise other-wise employed, can perform the duties of a watermaster. Every experience' in modern times teaches that It pays to have technical work done by technically tech-nically trained experts. The measurement measure-ment xif water, and the keeping of the records of the flow of streams, if and properly done, Is work of a high' ly technical character. If you employ a real expert to perform this duty, a"11 give to him as compensation that salary sal-ary to which ho is by experience a"11 technical training fairly entitled, you will find him "the cheapest man on the job," and the money you pay l)'ra In salary will be the portion of yuf Investment that is most wisely niad He will render you poor service, l" deed. If he does not save an ' for his employer, on a project requir ing the full time of a man for w master, many times as much money as ho receives for his servlc tfin |