140 



THE' IRRIGATION AGE. 



known as the State Irrigation Engineer. The board 

 is charged with the following work : 



1. To construct twenty irrigation well and pump- 

 ing stations in as many different counties, as a practi- 

 cal test of the possibilities of irrigation from under- 

 ground waters. 



2. To ascertain the amount of surface waters in 

 streams flowing west of the 98th meridian, and the 

 practicability of storing such waters for irrigation 

 purposes. 



3. To provide a full and complete drainage map of 

 Western Kansas. 



4. To obtain data of rainfall, evaporation, temper- 

 ature and soil percolation. 



5. To make test drillings for artesian basins and 

 report upon the chances for storing waters that may 

 be so obtained. 



It is also provided that full reports of these vari- 

 ous operations shall be made and filed with the 

 State. The total appropriation for this work is $30,- 

 000. The sum seems ridiculously inadequate to the 

 demands of a State which has lost more than $30,000 

 a week in the matter of reputation alone, not to men- 

 tion the millions lost in damaged crops, nor the 

 human misery incurred by repeated drouths. But 

 the law is a good one, and the appropriation is a 

 great deal better than nothing. It is to be hoped that 

 the next legislature will be so well pleased with the 

 result as to provide more generously for future work. 

 The new board has made an excellent start by select- 

 ing H. V. Hinckley as its consulting engineer. He 

 has the brains, training and enthusiasm to perform a 

 splendid public work in that capacity. 



Nebraska ^ n Nebraska, too, the movement has 

 also Takes triumphed in legislation. One section 

 of the new law reads: " Water is hereby 

 declared to be a natural want." This simple decla- 

 ration means a great deal to Nebraska, both in a legal 

 and in a sentimental sense. It is the final recognition, 

 so long delayed by indifference and stupid opposition, 

 but so imperiously and persistently urged by recur- 

 ring seasons of drouth, that Nebraska is a State that 

 requires irrigation. The declaration puts the need 

 of water for irrigation on the same basis as the need 

 of water for domestic purposes, and thus makes ap- 

 propriation for this use superior to appropriation lor 

 power, or any other use, except the vital necessities 

 of sustaining life and producing crops. The new law 

 also creates the office of State Engineer, and an Irri- 

 gation Board, consisting of the Governor, Attorney- 

 General and Land Commissioners. The State is 

 divided into two great districts of the North and the 

 South. Nebraska is better watered than Kansas, and 

 there is not the same need of investigating under- 

 ground supplies. Another feature of the Nebraska 



legislation relating to the District law is discussed 

 further on in these columns. 



The New Day The faithful friends of Western prog- 

 Semi-A^-id ress nave many reasons to rejoice this 

 Regions. year, but of all the encouraging events 

 which are making 1895 a red-letter year to them none 

 of them is more important than the dawn of reason 

 upon the public men of Kansas and Nebraska. It is 

 now five years since a small, but earnest, minority in 

 the latter State appealed to the legislature to stop 

 the drouth and suffering which constantly recur in 

 western counties by ascertaining what portion of the 

 State could be reclaimed and then proceeding to re- 

 claim it. It is probably longer than that since a few 

 brave spirits, then denounced as cranks, made a 

 similar appeal to the legislature in Kansas. At last 

 victory has come, and these two States, to rescue 

 whose starving settlers the hat has so often been 

 passed in Eastern audiences, are about to enter upon 

 a policy of systematic irrigation, with a proper plan 

 of administration, and under laws that render scien- 

 tific developm nt easy and certain. There never 

 will be a backward step there now, we predict. The 

 constant growth will be in the direction of small 

 farms, intense cultivation, diversified crops, better 

 homes, nearer neighbors, higher institutions. All 

 these things are the legitimate out-growth of irriga- 

 tion. We hope the day is near at hand when it can 

 truthfully be said that not a single farmer's family is 

 suffering for life's necessities in either of these two 

 States, whatever the shortcomings of the rainfall. 



District Although the events of the past two 



L,aw Goes years in California have not been par- 

 Marching On. * 



ticularly encouraging to the friends 



of the District Law, the vital principle of the statute 

 continues to grow in favor throughout the country. 

 During the past winter three States adopted the 

 Wright law with slight amendment. These were 

 Oregon, Idaho and Nebraska. Furthermore, all the 

 States which have accepted the grant of lands under 

 the Carey law have provided that the ownership of 

 canals shall finally pass to the people. It is thus 

 perfectly clear that all the tendencies of our develop- 

 ment are now strongly in fa-vor of the public owner- 

 ship of works, and the absolute denial of private 

 property in water.and its corollary, the right to charge 

 a perpetual rental. But there is a vital difference 

 between the methods of the Wright law and of the 

 new legislation in Wyoming, for instance. Under 

 the former the settlers must raise capital by selling 

 bonds and must construct the works as well as admin- 

 ister them when completed. It is in the sale of 

 bonds and building of canals that the California 

 districts have been disappointed. In Wyoming 

 private enterprise will raise the capital and build the 



