IRRIGATION UNDER THE CAREY ACT. 465 



not be issued until actual operation and partial cultivation had 

 taken place. This was a serious weakness, for, as a business propo- 

 sition, it was j3o<jr policy to make a hcav}^ investment that Avas utterly 

 dependent for its safety upon the success or failure, willful or other- 

 wise, of the prospective settler, especially when the period during 

 which the act was in operation was limited to 10 years from the date 

 of its passage. 



Wyoming, IMontana, and Colorado were the only States to accept 

 the terms of the original act. Wyoming, because of the familiarity 

 of its public men with the conditions leading up to the j^assage of 

 the act, was in a position to enact a fairly good law, although it 

 could not eliminate the objectionable features just mentioned. Mon- 

 tana, in its law passed March 18, 1895, seemed in a measure to misin- 

 terpret the meaning of the act, for provision was made for the State 

 to undertake the reclamation and settlement of feasible projects. A 

 commission of five, appointed by the governor, was to select the 

 lands, appropriate the water, and pay for construction from funds 

 received from the sales of land. Fortunately, nothing was attempted, 

 owing to the smallness of the appropriation — $1,000 — for carrying 

 out the provisions of the act, and no serious harm was done. To 

 remove these obstacles to the practical working of the law. Congress, 

 in the act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the 

 Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1S07, and for other 

 purposes, ajiproved June 11, 1896 (29 Stat. 413^34), inserted under 

 the head of appropriation for " surveying public lands," the follow- 

 ing provision: 



That under any law heretofore or hereafter enacted by any State providing for 

 the reclanuition of arid lands, in pursuance and acceptance of the terms of the 

 grant made in section four of an act entitled "An act mailing appropriations for 

 the sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thir- 

 tieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-five," approved August eighteenth, eighteen 

 hundred and ninety-four, a lien or liens is hereby authorized to be created by 

 the State to which such lands ar-e granted and by no other authority whatever, 

 and when created shall be valid on and against the separate legal subdivisions 

 of land reclaimed, for the actual cost and necessary expenses of reclamation and 

 reasonable interest thereon from the date of reclamation until disposed of to 

 actual settlers; and when an ample supply of water is actually furnislied in a 

 substantial ditch or canal, or by artesian wells or reservoirs, to reclaim a par- 

 ticular tract or tracts of such lands, then patents shall issue for the same to 

 such State without regard to settlement or cultivation : Provided, That in no 

 event, in no contingency, and under no circumstances shall the United State.s 

 be in any manner directly or indirectly liable for any amount of any such lien 

 or liability, in whole or in part. 



Notwithstanding the benefit of this amendment in insuring the 

 State and the contractor again.st possible loss through inability to 

 secure title, there still remained a serious defect in the law, which pre- 

 vented the fullest use being made of it. This defect was the time limit 

 91866°— 11 30 



