114 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



aside as an annuity fund; 46,000 to .be expended 

 for the purchase of cattle for the Indians. The bal- 

 ance remaining of the appropriation constitutes a 

 fund to be expended for the benefit of the Crow tribe, 

 under the direction of the Interior Department. 



INTERESTING ESTIMATE OF COST. 



Walter H. Graves, engineer in charge of the works, 

 states that it is safe to estimate that the average cost 

 of water per acre for the amount of land covered will 

 not exceed $5 per acre. The estimated cost of canal 

 ranges from $1,000 to $8,000 per mile, with an average 

 of about $3,000. A description of the Little Big Horn 

 valley would be practically a reproduction of what 

 has already been given concerning the west Big Horn 

 line. The total length of the line is about 106 miles. 

 There are about 50,000 acres of irrigable land in the 

 Little Big Horn valley. Plans contemplated at 

 present, however, will only irrigate about one half of 

 the amount of land estimated in either of the valleys. 



THE INDIANS BEFORE AND AFTER THE IRRIGA- 

 TION DEVELOPMENT. 



The Indians composing the Crow tribe, inhabiting 

 the reservation, number about 2,500. Many of them 

 reside along the Big Horn and Little Big Horn rivers, 

 a few along Pryor creek, and others along the Yellow- 

 stone. Some of them had gardens and small fields 

 of grain before the government commenced this 

 work. The plan followed out has been to utilize the 

 greatest amount of water, irrigating the greatest area 

 of land, and comparatively at the least cost. There is 

 an abundance of good land, with an 'available water 

 supply sufficient to furnish each family of the tribe 

 with nearly 320 irrigated acres, and enough good 

 grazing land for 640 acres to each family, and this 

 will be the policy. After this is done there will still 

 remain more than 2,000,000 acres of land for which 

 the Indians will have no use. 



HIGHLY CREDITABLE TO ENGINEER GRAVES. 



The work has not progressed as rapidly as it 

 might have done, owing to the fact that the authority 

 rests with officials at Washington, who operate at 



this distance at considerable disadvantage. But so 

 far as it has proceeded it has been done in a thor- 

 oughly satisfactory manner, and reflects much credit 

 upon the ability, tact and patience of Walter H. 

 Graves, who serves as the engineer and superin- 

 tendent. Few people believed that it would be 

 possible for Indians to construct the works as well 

 and as cheaply as white men, but the experiment has 

 been quite surprising to all who have noticed its prog- 

 ress. A correspondent of THE IRRIGATION AGE 

 visited the agency in the latter part of August, 1894, 

 and happened to be there on the day the Indians re- 

 ceived their month's pay. He also saw them using 

 their wagons, scrapers and plows, and doing as much 

 work as the average white man would do. 



WHAT WILL THE HARVEST BE.' 1 



The end of this experiment cannot be seen until 

 there has been an experience of actual irrigation 

 farming by the Indians. The soil, climate and water 

 works are all that could be desired. Will the Crow 

 Indians prove equal to the demands of a good stand- 

 ard of agriculture? 



In the judgment of an unprejudiced observer, who 

 has studied the matter upon the ground, and with 

 the benefit of expressions of opinion from various 

 individuals with different standpoints, it may be said 

 that all depends upon whom the Indians shall have 

 for a practical instructor for "guide, philosopher and 

 friend," in an agricultural sense. If the Interior De- 

 partment sends out for this work some broken-winded 

 spoilsman an irrigator from Maine, or a farmer from 

 New York City, for instance the experiment must 

 end in miserable failure. But if, with such sense as 

 men use in their private affairs, superintendents are 

 chosen from among the hard-headed farmers of the 

 Gallatin valley of Montana, then there can be no 

 question about the success of the undertaking. 



It is sincerely to be hoped that no fatal mistake 

 will be made at this late day. It would be a cruel 

 and a needless thing to wreck such a hopeful experi- 

 ment, touching the destiny of a race, in order to give 

 a job to some unsuccessful politician who had failed 

 to earn his living at his trade or profession. 



ONE ASPECT OF SOCIAL REFORM. 



BY CHAS. STIRLING, M. D., OF CALIFORNIA. 



IT is a notable tact in the history ot human events, 

 that great reforms and great revolutions nearly 

 always come about in the most unexpected ways. 

 The inventor of gunpowder, in all probability, had 

 neither thought nor wish for the downfall of the 

 feudal system, the immortal Gutenberg, with his 

 primitive printing press, was, no doubt, a devout son 

 of that mediaeval church whose foundations in 

 Northern Europe were to be shaken into ruins by this 

 same mighty invention. So, also, in these days it 

 may be that the solution of this great problem or irri- 

 gation will be a very powerful help toward the solu- 

 tion of other problems even greater and more impor- 

 tant still. All the signs of the times would seem to 

 indicate that some very radical readjustment of our 

 industrial, social and governmental institutions must 

 be had in the near future, and such, we believe, is the 

 more or less decided opinion of perhaps a majority 



of all intelligent men. The theory and practice of 

 government and business as they have come down to 

 us from our grandfathers, are not adapted, and can- 

 not be adapted, to present day necessities, and the 

 old-time theories and the actual facts of the present 

 have been pushed so far apart that the breaking 

 strain must very soon be reached. Steam and elec- 

 tricity will do for our generation very much what 

 gunpowder and the printing press did for the ages of 

 long ago, and only a little time is necessary to the 

 working out of this conclusion. No wise man will 

 attempt to outline the shape and form of the coming 

 reform in all of its details, but government by cor- 

 porations and trusts will not much longer be toler- 

 ated. As was foretold by the prophet Macaulay, the 

 time is now very near at hand when our national ter- 

 ritory will be all occupied or monopolized, when the 

 cities of America will be as numerous and as popu- 



