and when one farm was thus sold all others in the neighbourhood instantly came into the market, always at fictitious values. Legitimate farming suffered as district after district, county after county, engaged in the race for wealth easily gotten through the speculative disposal of farm lands, to easterners or others in the grip of the fruitgrowing mania.
Irrigation, wherever it came, worked even a greater revolution in the value of lands affected, than did fruit growing. Desert lands are low-priced. Irrigated lands are high-priced. Schemes of irrigation by private companies, under state auspices, and under national auspices were actively promoted in some areas, anticipated in others, and hoped for wherever water and sage plain were found in relations which might render irrigation possible. The result has been speculation in so-called "irrigable "lands tending to inflate values unduly.
Increase in number of small farms. From all causes, some legitimate and some otherwise, the number of small farms, ranging from less than twenty acres to one hundred acres, was increased in these three states during the last census period from about 28,000 to 59,000; and it is significant that the largest relative increase was in the number of very small farms,—those under twenty acres. In farms of moderate size, from one hundred to one hundred seventyfive acres, and over one hundred seventy-five but under five hundred, the increase was slight.
