232 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ley will provide forty-acre farms for 20,000 proprie- 

 tors, who, with an average of five to the family.would 

 make a population of 100,000 people on the farms. This 

 would require, including the natural growth of towns 

 and industries, a total population in the valley of 

 250,000 souls, Mr. Mills estimates. He believes the 

 best of all plans would be to have the general gov- 

 ernment undertake the work of reclamation. Failing 

 in that, he would advocate cession to- the States as the 

 next best plan. He advises stringent State laws reg- 

 ulating appropriations and ditch management. Mr. 

 Mills should favor every member of the State and 

 Territorial commissions with copies of his address. 



A very interesting irrigation convention 

 Southwest 111 M ^ i XT i_ i i 



Nebraska was held at McCook, Nebraska, early in 



Aroused. ^ av j t resu it e d \ n the organization of the 

 Southwestern Nebraska Irrigation Association, which 

 will take up the work of introducing the best methods 

 of obtaining and applying water. This territory is a 

 fine country and will be speedily transformed from a 

 semi-starvation belt to a land of plenty by irrigation. 

 It is quite abundantly supplied with water, has a fine 

 climate, a rich soil, good transportation facilities and 

 is conveniently near to large markets. Most inter- 

 esting developments may be expected there during 

 the next two years. 



The resignation of Major John W. Powell 

 Fowell from the high office of Director of the 

 Retires. Geological Survey was tendered to Pres- 

 ident Cleveland, May 10th. The reason assigned is 

 ill health, and those near to Major Powell know only 

 too well the entire genuineness of the excuse. He 

 was severely wounded in the war, and during the 

 past few months he has suffered great pain from com- 

 plications due primarily to his wounds. It has be- 

 come absolutely necessary for him to put all work 

 aside, seek perfect rest, recruit his health, and then, 

 if able, submit to a severe operation. Six months 

 ago Major Powell informed the writer, in confidence, 

 that his resignation would be tendered before the 

 middle of the present year, and that the rest of his 

 life would be devoted to gathering the results of his 

 work into presentable literary form. It is sincerely to 

 be hoped that he will have the strength and length 

 of days to perform the high literary tasks he has set 

 for himself. If so, a valuable and interesting portion 

 of his career is still before him. 



Major Powell is a many-sided man. He 

 His Work . J _,. . 



in the has won distinction in several depart- 



Far West. ments o f science, in literature, in war, 

 and in the field of exploration. The Geological Sur- 

 vey was his creation. There is not space here, nor is 

 this the fitting time, to review his life and work as a 

 whole, to pass upon what he has tried to do and what 

 he has accomplished, to speak of his strength and his 



John 

 H 



weakness, his successes and his failures. But it is 

 highly appropriate that his retirement from public 

 life should be accompanied by a statement in these 

 pages of Major Powell's services to Western America. 

 This statement is made elsewhere, by another pen. 

 Whatever praise may be accorded or denied him, no 

 honest mind will dissent when it is said that John W. 

 Powell has done more than any other single individ- 

 ual to banish from the popular mind the picture of 

 Arid America as a dreary, barren and utterly worth- 

 less waste and to erect in its place a vision of Arid 

 America as a land whose scenic beauties outshine all 

 the storied scenes of Europe, and whose industrial 

 possibilities promise a future civilization greater than 

 any of the past. Remembering this supreme service 

 to our new West the severest critic of his later utter- 

 ances will join THE IRRIGATION AGE in the hope that 

 Major Powell will enjoy a speedy return to good 

 health and that his life may long be spared. 



Hon. John Hyde, of Nebraska, expert 

 special agent of census in charge of 

 Work. agriculture, appointed January, 1890, 

 has just completed his work. His appointment was 

 entirely non-partisan, his peculiar fitness for the 

 position being urged upon the appointing powers by a 

 very large number of leading agriculturists, jour- 

 nalists and railroad officers of the country, without 

 distinction of party. While he had investigated the 

 agricultural and other industrial conditions of the 

 country to the extent of visiting for that express pur- 

 pose every state and territory, not excepting even 

 Alaska, his long residence in, the West, and the 

 prominence he had attained in the exploitation of its 

 various resorces, rendered him an eminently fit rep- 

 resentative of that great region in the decennial 

 stock-taking of the nation. It was Mr. Hyde's de- 

 clared intention that the agricultural work of the llth 

 census should constitute a more complete and accu- 

 rate setting-forth of the condition of the great inter- 

 ests with which he was intrusted than had ever before 

 been attempted, and the success of his endeavors is 

 attested by the wide range of his preliminary reports 

 and by the fact that even results for which the 

 country was totally unprepared have been accepted 

 without reserve on the strength of the manifest thor- 

 oughness of his methods. That the census office 

 has for the first time taken cognizance of irrigation 

 is due entirely to Mr. Hyde's earnest and persistent 

 advocacy of its claims to recognition, and it is an 

 open secret that Mr. F. H. Newell would not have 

 been permitted to complete his laborious investigation 

 of that subject on the scale on which it was under- 

 taken had not a strong western man been at the head 

 of the entire agricultural work of the census. Mr. 

 Hyde is a member of the Council of the National 

 Geographic Society and a Fellow of the Royal 



