THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



which there is no water, and to the financial injury 

 and personal hardship of many an honest toiler. 



If there is to be any change, however, it must be 

 wrought quickly because each year intensifies the in- 

 sular feeling of each state and the rivalry felt towards 

 its neighbor. It also renders the people of each state 

 more contented with their local laws and customs, 

 and less likely to accept any innovations or radical 

 changes. In stating that there exists a sectional feel- 

 ing and prejudice on the question of water I express 

 what is either known to exist or which any attempt to 

 introduce natural control will be sure to provoke. 

 Indeed, the people of Wyoming believe that we have 

 recently witnessed a very striking illustration of this 

 feeling on the part of our eastern brethern. It will, I 

 think, be admitted that the subject of irrigation is of 

 greater consequence to Wyoming than to Kansas. 

 The latter is a great agricultural state at present and 

 will always be so should not an acre of its arid land be 

 reclaimed. Wyoming is not at present self-supporting 

 so far as agriculture is concerned, and there is no 

 hope of her becoming so within the near future so 

 long as the oppressive conditions of our present land 

 laws remain in force. In Wyoming better agricult- 

 ural conditions are an absolute necessity. Until we 

 have them progress in other lines will be retarded. 

 Less than one-tenth of the public land of this state is 

 in the hands of private owners or contributes any- 

 thing to the state's support in the way of taxation. 

 Of the public lands by far the larger part are grazing 

 lands. The value of these lands depends almost en- 

 tirely on their being protected from being over- 

 stocked. Because of such overstocking large areas 

 have already been seriously damaged, and in some 

 sections the native pasturage has been practically 

 ruined. The haste for present gain takes no heed of 

 future consequences. The state suffers from a con- 

 dition in which self-interest prompts the spoliation 

 rather than the preservation of its resources. The 

 opportunity to occupy the open range free of cost is 

 also a sufficient incentive to secure abundant aid from 

 outside sources. Flocks of sheep come from Oregon 

 and herds of cattle from Texas to participate and 

 hasten the destruction of one of the chief sources of 

 the state's wealth and future prosperity. It is little 

 better with our irrigable lands and with the water 

 supply which is to reclaim them. Those who have 

 studied the possibilities of the state know that what 

 is needed is large, low, level canals, which can only 

 be constructed through state aid, or through a land 

 system which will permit of concerted action. At the 

 present time the only development possible is that 

 wrought by the individual settler, and the individual 

 settler can only utilize opportunities which are within 

 his means rather than those most to be desired. The 

 state, having no control over the lands, can practi- 



cally exercise no control over the construction of 

 irrigation works. It has nothing to say as to how or 

 where ditches are to be built. As the individual set- 

 tler cannot divert the river, he goes up into the 

 mountain until the rivulet is reached. Instead of 

 one large canal there are hundreds of individual 

 ditches. The water is wasted and lost in this multi- 

 tude of channels by evaporation and percolation, and 

 when used does not secure the best results because 

 of the unfavorable climatic conditions. That we are 

 building up such a system of works is not due to lack 

 of appreciation of what we should have, or lack of 

 knowledge of the best possibilities of the state, but it 

 is simply a makeshift due to unreasonable and op- 

 pressive conditions fixed upon the state by the na- 

 tional land laws. 



The people of this state, conscious of these evils 

 and seeing no hope of securing national aid, insti- 

 tuted a movement for a cession of these lands to the 

 state in trust in order that the state might control 

 the construction of ditches, conserve the public water 

 supplies, and in order that the gradual destruction 

 of the vast areas of grazing lands might cease. The 

 reception which this movement met with in remote 

 sections of the country illustrates the force of the 

 statement that no man can understand conditions he 

 has not seen. Our friends in Kansas apparently saw 

 nothing in this movement but an effort to absorb the 

 entire water supply and thus work them an injury. 

 We suddenly awoke to the fact that we were land 

 grabbers and water monopolists. In fact, I cannot 

 recall an opprobrious epithet which has not been vis- 

 ited upon the heads of the leaders in this movement. 

 It has been useless for us to attempt to explain that 

 monopoly of water was the farthest from our thought, 

 or to endeavor to have it understood that so far as 

 the water supply is concerned no movement could 

 be more in the interest of the states below us. I am 

 not saying in this that the cession of the lands is the 

 best solution that can be devised, but I am saying 

 what I know to be true, that the movement was insti- 

 gated by a desire to relieve this section of evils 

 which are not only retarding its progress but are 

 working a direct injury to the other states interested 

 in our water supplies; -and to say further that the 

 movement for our own relief carried with it no direct 

 or indirect injury to other sections of this country. 

 The hostility which it aroused was entirely due to a 

 lack of knowledge of our conditions and of the evils 

 which the movement was designed to remove. As a 

 result we are going on in the old way. Parties are 

 taking out ditches, without let or hindrance, wher- 

 ever there is any water left in the streams, and as 

 an illustration of how the interests of the states below 

 us are being affected by this haphazard develop- 

 ment I will give one incident of my official experi- 



