THE LAND SYSTEM NEEDED FOR THE ARID REGION. Birt 
to irrigate the unreclaimed land shall thereupon lapse, and any subsequent 
right to the water necessary to the cultivation of the said unreclaimed land 
shall be acquired only by priority of utilization. 
The provisions in the submitted bills by which the settlers themselves 
may parcel their lands may need further comment and elucidation. If the 
whole of the Arid Region was yet unsettled, it might be wise for the Gov- 
ernment to undertake the parceling of the lands and employ skilled engi- 
neers to do the work, whose duties could then be performed in advance of 
settlement. It is manifest that this work cannot be properly performed 
under the contract system; it would be necessary to employ persons of 
skill and judgment under a salary system. The mining industries which 
have sprung up in the country since the discovery of gold on the Pacific 
coast, in 1849, have stimulated immigration, so that settlements are scat- 
tered throughout the Arid Region; mining towns have sprung up on the 
flanks of almost every great range of mountains, and adjacent valleys 
have been occupied by persons desiring to engage in agriculture. Many of 
the lands surveyed along the minor streams have been entered, and the 
titles to these lands are in the hands of actual settlers. Many pasturage 
farms, or ranches, as they are called locally, have been established through- 
out the country. These remarks are true of every state and territory in 
the Arid Region. In the main these ranches or pasturage farms are on Goy- 
ernment land, and the settlers are squatters, and some are not expecting to 
make permanent homes. Many other persons have engaged in pasturage 
enterprises without having made fixed residences, but move about from place 
to place with their herds. It is now too late for the Government to parcel 
the pasturage lands in advance of the wants of settlers in the most avail- 
able way, so as to closely group residences and give water privileges to the 
several farms. Many of the settlers are actually on the ground, and are 
clamoring for some means by which they can obtain titles to pasturage farms 
of an extent adequate to their wants, and the tens of thousands of individual 
interests would make the problem a difficult one for the officers of the Goy- 
ernment to solve. A system less arbitrary than that of the rectangular 
surveys now in vogue, and requiring unbiased judgment, overlooking the 
