282 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



route, that scatttered like a coop of wild chickens let suddenly loose 

 when they reached the station ten miles from the land. Not one of them 

 ever saw it. The agents of a dozen other propositions were on hand 

 and scared them all off. But until the last few years it has not been diffi- 

 cult with good conditions of land and water in one hand to find settlers 

 fast enough if the owners of the land had any sense about hadling it a 

 very important point we will consider farther on. 



Every attempt to ignore this principle of making the enhanced value 

 of the land cover the time of waiting for settlement; and every at- 

 tempt to build works as they are built for city supply and depend upon 

 an annual payment for the use of the water to pay any interest on the in- 

 vestment, besides maintaining the works, is quite certain to result in dis- 

 astrous financial failure. Most of the failures of irrigation works are 

 from this cause, and in almost every case it could have been learned in 

 advance had the builders taken the slightest pains to learn anything 

 about the business from others who had been through it. Whe^e the 

 land is in private hands water cannot be sold fast erough to save the 

 projectors of the works unless they are marvelously simple and the land 

 owners wonderfully appreciative. The few who will help are not 

 enough, for the crops the great majority want the water to raise are not 

 oranges or alfalfa but tenderfeet. 



Where the land is so barren without water that it is impossible for 

 any one to live upon it, and especially where it is impossible to comply 

 with the homestead law, profitable irrigation works may still be built 

 even with all the land in the hands of the government. Here the arid 

 land law has been a great public benefit, The settler under it is com- 

 pelled to secure water for the land in order to make his filing and proof. 

 He cannot sit in the way as a speculator and refuse to contribute any- 

 thing toward the work that is to make his land valuable. Many who 

 know little of its workings have raised the regulation howl about monop- 

 oly and demanded the repeal of this law, But without it there would be 

 nothing but desert today where the marvelous fields of Salt River Val- 

 ley now smile around Phoenix, and many another thrifty settlement owes 

 its existence entirely to the fact that the settler had to buy water of a 

 company or else let the land alone. 



Few, if any, have had my experience in making contracts with land 

 owners for water and in trying to induce them to buy, either as individ- 

 uals or as communities. I have graduated at the business and would ad- 

 vise all those who wish to retain kindly feelings for their fellow man to 

 keep piously out of it. You can get bushels of promises and smiles, 

 good wishes and handshakes without number. But when you pull out 

 the paper that is to be signed to make all this brotherly love and recog- 

 nition of true merit available as an asset to ensure interest on the money 

 that is to go into the work, then excuse me, my thoughts are too 

 deep for utterance. And to know how much you can really love your 



