174 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



of which 43 or 52 acres or some other number may be irrigable. 

 The charge for water is apportioned according to the number of 

 irrigable acres, irrespective of the total of the farm unit. This farm 

 may extend across the canal to an extreme size of 160 acres, of which 

 a portion may be dry land above the reach of water and a portion 

 irrigable. 



REQUIREMENT OF SETTLEMENT. 



The requirement of actual settlement on the reclaimed land has 

 been one which has led to much discussion and has been the cause of 

 much of the hardship incident to pioneering. The theory of the law 

 as originally passed was that the Government, investing this trust 

 fund without profit and interest, does this for the purpose of securing 

 settlement in the more sparsely populated western States. The 

 prime object was not so much to enrich these localities or States as 

 to secure resident citizens, who would not only cultivate the soil and 

 become producers but would build up the institutions of the State, 

 make roads, organize schools, and add to the strength of the Com- 

 monwealth. 



If, however, the Government were to reclaim the lands and permit 

 men living in near-by cities, or even in Chicago or New York, to pur- 

 chase or hold these lands, cultivating them through tenants, the main 

 object of the bill would be defeated. It would amount practically 

 to lending this money without profit or interest to a favored few. 

 Assuming, for example, that the proportional cost of reclaiming a 

 40-acre farm was $30 an acre, this would be $1,200 invested by the 

 Government for the benefit of some one family. This $1,200 is to be 

 repaid in 10 annual installments by the landowner. If he prefers 

 to live in the city, and rents the use of the land to some other indi- 

 vidual, this renter will have little^ or no interest in the permanent 

 improvement and in development of the land and of the community. 

 If either man is to be benefited by this loan of the Government, it 

 should be the renter on the farm rather than the big or little capi- 

 talist living in town. 



For this reason the resident clause has been held to be vital to 

 the object of the act, although it has caused much hardship through 

 the requirement that men bring their families out into the desert and 

 live there throughout the early years of preparation. From the 

 standpoint of a man working in a store or machine shop, a teacher 

 or professional man, the idea is extremely attractive of getting one 

 of these homesteads from the Government, visiting it occasionally, 

 adding improvements, and hiring a man to look after it until the 

 community has been built up and the days of pioneering have passed. 

 His monthly savings can be put into the little farm and provision 

 made for the future without interfering with his daily wage-earning 



