464 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS, 



approved March third, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, and the act amenda- 

 tory thereof, approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, binding 

 the United States to donate, grant, and patent to the State, free of cost for 

 survey or price, such desert lands, not exceeding one million acres in each 

 State, as the State may cause to be irrigated, reclaimed, occupied, and not less 

 than twenty acres of each one hundred and sixty-acre tract cultivated by actual 

 settlers, within ten years next after the passage of this act, as thoroughly as is 

 required of citizens who may enter under the said desert-land law. Before the 

 application of any State is allowed or any contract or agreement is executed 

 or any segregation of any of the land from the public domain is ordered by the 

 Secretary of the Interior, the State shall file a map of the said laud proposed 

 to be irrigated, which shall exhibit a plan showing the mode of the contemplated 

 irrigation, and which plan shall be sufflcieut to thoroughly irrigate and reclaim 

 said land and prepai'e it to raise ordinary agricultural crops and shall also show 

 the source of the water to be used for irrigation and reclamation, and the Secre- 

 tary of the Interior may make necessary regulations for the reservation of the 

 lands applied for by the States to date from the date of the filing of the map 

 and plan of irrigation ; but such reservation shall be of no force whatever if 

 such map and plan of irrigation shall not be approved. That any State con- 

 tracting under this section is hereby authorized to make all necessary contracts 

 to cause the said lands to be reclaimed and to induce their settlement and culti- 

 vation in accordance with and subject to the provisions of this section; but the 

 State shall not be authorized to lease any of said lands or to use or dispose 

 of the same in any way whatever, except to secure their reclamation, cultiva- 

 tion, and settlement. As fast as any State may furnish satisfactory proof, ac- 

 cording to such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary 

 of the Interior, that any of said lands are irrigated, reclaimed, and occupied by 

 actual settlers, patents shall be issued to the State or its assigns for said lands 

 so reclaimed and settled : Provided, That said States shall not sell or dispose 

 of more than one hundred and sixty acres of said lands to any one person, and 

 any surplus of money derived by any State from the sale of said lands in excess 

 of the cost of their reclamation shall be held as a trust fund for and be applied 

 to the reclamation of other desert lands in such State. That to enable the 

 Secretary of the Interior to examine any of the lands that may be selected 

 under the provisions of this section there is hereby appropriated, out of any 

 money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, one thousand dollars. 



The original act, although of great importance in opening the way 

 for irrigation development, "was deficient in many respects, and failed 

 to form the substantial working basis for which its advocates hoped. 

 Accejjtance of the terms of the act required special legislation on the 

 part of the States accepting the grant, there being no specific provi- 

 sions that should be followed in the original act defining the pro- 

 cedure. Many of the States committed serious and costly errors in 

 framing their legislation and adopting rules and regulations to con- 

 trol subsequent operations. One of the first deficiencies discovered 

 in the act was the fact that, although the State was " authorized to 

 make all necessary contracts to cause the lands to be reclaimed and 

 to induce settlement and cultivation," it was in no way protected in 

 the assumption of this responsibility, nor was it in a position to pro- 

 tect the contractor whose funds were used in the construction of the 

 canal system, for patent to the land under the terms of the act would 



