AZ vs. CA:02 California Exhibits, Vol II; Nos. 58-113A

page 44

operation and the fixed charges. If, with this end in view, you sacrifice what you consider your legitimate profits on the first 100,000 acres, what of it? You wTill still have left 300,000 acres under the first canal, and when that is gone, the canals can be enlarged to cover 550,000 acres more in San Diego County alone. Your ultimate profits will depend directly upon the financial success of the first settlers, since if they fail you will have to decrease, instead of increase, the price of lands and water. The cultivation of fruits is expensive; the first settlers will usually be men of small means and for years to come, the principal products of the Basin will necessarily be the grain and forage plants. Semi-tropical fruits and other high class products will come surely but more slowly. Unless the prices of land and water are placed at a figure that will assure a good return from the cultivation of the ordinary farm products, many of the first settlers will fail and your success must depend on theirs. The very magnitude of the proposition necessitates low prices at first. Where other irrigation concerns have needed 100 settlers, you require 1,000 to produce the same relative development. To get them, you must offer a proposition that cannot be duplicated in the arid regions, and you can do it and still figure your profits in the millions. I think that, at first, the prices of land and water rights should be placed at as low a