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22 PAONIA PROJECT, COLORADO roads, and public services. The fruit and vegetables crated and packed locally for shipment will provide employment for many people. The volume of business transacted in the local communities including utility services, employment, local transportation, wholesale purchases of some agricultural products and retail sales to thll farmer will be increased. The State will also share in the increased tax receipts which will ultimately be reflected in more adequate public services. Flood- control benefits, although small, will be extended to the county and State by a reduction in the cost of maintaining roads and bridges. The box-shook, crating, and basket industries will have an expanded market. Large population centers in the State will enjoy an increase in wholesale trade. Railroads and trucks will haul more products from farms to markets and more consumers' goods from industrial centers to farming communities. . Livestock centers such as San Francisco, Denver, Omaha, and Kansas City will benefit from the marketing of additional cattle and sheep. Industrial centers can sell more farm machinery, transporta- tion equipment, food-processing materials and equipment, and con- sumers' goods. . . Irrigation of these lands will have a small but nevertheless stabiliz- ing effect on the national economy. A plentiful supply of water greatly increases the farmer's net income per man-hour of labor, thus . bringing agriculture closer to a parity with industry. Higher income also means a higher standard of living for the farm family. Fully 60 percent of construction expenditures will go to labor and as a result local business will be stimulated immediately after the start of con- struction. The present farm income on some 150 of the project farms . is less than $800 a year which can be translated into terms of inade- quacies that ultimately increase the national tax burden for relief and subsidies. Irrigation of the Leroux Creek lands will result in more owner operation instead of tenant operation of the farms, thereby re- ducing migration of farm labor. Construction in the postwar period will furnish employment to a large number of men returning from the armed services and war industries. The North Fork River Valley, in common with many other sections of western Colorado, has contributed manpower as well as food prod- ucts to the cities of the Nation. This movement of population has been theresult of not only the attractions of cities but also the pres- sure of surplus farm population. At the same time this shift of population was made, good irrigable land was left unproductive and large quantities of winter and spring season water flowed unused down the North Fork River. In order to accommodate the natural increase in farm population it is necessary either to e;xpand to new farm land or to subdivide present family-size farms. A further subdivision of farms will lower the standard of living and adversely affect the economic stability 'of the region and indirectly the Nation. There has not been a time in the last 40 years when the pressure of farm population has not resulted in migration of farm people to the cities. . The personal independence and other advantages of farm life, so highly valued by the farmer, have retained many people on farms, even to the extent of causing a lower level of living standards among the farm population. Consummation of the project will increase faI'Ill income in the area and tend to maintain more desirable living standards . for a larger farm population.