6 



abundant, the elevation satisfactory and there is a local market with good 

 prices for all that could be produced. 



The land is worth nothing without water, bnt if the experience of other 

 localities can be taken as a guide, the possession of a water supply will 

 make it worth $15 or $20 an acre. Parties approached were willing to 

 provide the needed amount provided the land could be made security, but 

 when it was explained that it was public land, that there were no settlers 

 and could h<* none until the ditch was assured, the question was raised as 

 to what inducement there was to an investor to make an improvement of 

 $10 an acre on government land when he had no means of securing the 

 land, no means of determining whether the land would be occupied by a 

 person willing to pay for that improvement, or, if willing, whether he would 

 be able to pay for it. 



The party whose aid was solicited then asked if the promoters of the 

 enterprise would be willing to furnish an independent and adequate gaur- 

 anty that the settlers who filed on the land would either become part 

 owners in the canal or purchasers of water for their land at a price to repay 

 the money expended on the canal. This could not be done. Leaving out 

 of consideration the speculative filings, made simply to secure the advance 

 in values due to the construction of the canal and the improvement of 

 adjacent lands, it WHS certain that only a small number of the settlers could 

 pay $10 an acre for the water supply for 160 acres, but that all would be 

 disposed to file on 160 acres, because there would be no material increase 

 in cost over filing on a lesser area. The result was too apparent, there 

 would have been fir^t speculative filings on a portion of the land by men 

 who were not farmers, but who would avail themselves of the opportunity 

 to secure a share ju the increase of value. Second, filing on 160 acres by 

 farmers able to provide water for and to cultivate one-fourth or one-half 

 that area. Under favorable conditions, it was certain that fully half the 

 land must remain idle and unproductive for an indefinite period, and the 

 chances for the investment proving safe or lucrative not one in a million. 



The objections raised in this case are the objections which have been 

 raised in every case. We have here natural conditions which require that 

 canals shall be built in advance of settlement. We have laud laws which 

 permit of settlement of the lauds to be benefitted under terms which amount 

 to virtual confiscation of the sums spent in their improvement. So long as 

 these laws remain in force it is not reasonable to expect that we will secure 

 any material assistance from the outside world. 



There was a time when money could be secured to construct ditches to 

 water public land jnst as there was a time when any prospect hole in the 

 mountains could be sold as a mine, but the results following both invest- 

 ments have been of the same character. Fully ninety per cent of all the 

 ditches built to water public laud have proven financial disasters to their 

 owners and this fact is now generally understood. 



The obstacles which the present land laws present aie aggravated in 

 our case by the fact that we are not able in any way to circumvent them. 

 We have not, as have other States, any adventitious aids. We have not, as 

 has Colorado, a State land law which permits of this donation being used 

 as an aid to development. The conditions attached to the donation to this 

 State, which fixes the minimum selling price of these lands at $10 an acre, 



