The article examines the private entrepreneurial activity of irrigation, which was formed and operated in agriculture in the late XIX - early XX centuries in the former Turkestan, under colonial conditions. It was found that the inflow of large business capital into the lands of Turkestan, the elimination of the fragmentation of small farms, the formation of various types of private enterprises, as well as farming, and they were engaged in irrigation business in the development of cotton. The author concludes that these studied “waves” of entrepreneurship have historical significance in today's New Uzbekistan, in the reform of the agricultural sector.