UNPROFITABLE IRRIGATION 

 WORKS. 



NO. VII. 

 T. S. VAN DYKE. 



In spite of all that can be said, the fact still stands out clearly, as 

 I stated at the outset, that one of the main things with which irriga- 

 tion companies have had to contend has been the difficulty of getting 

 settlers. The stupidity of companies about this has been wonderful, 

 but even the most judicious management has found it uphill work for 

 several years past, growing steadily worse up to the last year or two. 



The main cause of it is due to the idea that farming is unprofitable; 

 that a country life is dull and slow; that farming is good enough for 

 those who know no better, or can do no better, but is not the thing for 

 the boy of the family, who must be something better than his father 

 was; that it is not progress but rather setting one back in the world 

 and making him a laughing stock under the name of "hayseed" or 

 something else. 



While these ideas have been growing there was a boom over a 

 great part of the farming sections of the west due to the opening of 

 the great prairie region since the civil war, the vast production of 

 wheat with little competition in the market of the world, the growth 

 of the country in population and wealth which had no equal in history 

 so long as any government land in the good rainbelts was left, and 

 upon that the influx of foreign capital in such great amounts some fif- 

 teen years ago. 



Kansas and California were the storm centers of the culmination 

 of this boom, but it raged more or less all through the west and found 

 people in the country almost as ripe for it as those of the towns. For 

 many years we had been taught, indirectly but quite plainly, that we, 

 the people of the great United States, were an exception to all known 

 rules that govern the human race. Of course a Mexican farmer can- 

 not enjoy this and that luxury. He is only a peon. Of course a 

 farmer in Europe cannot. Is he not a peasant? Surely a farmer in 

 India cannot. Why, he is only a ryot. But the American farmer can 

 have this and that and the other thing, of course. For is he not an 

 American? Of course he can have luxuries, and the progress of our 

 country on the great upward road, which it is to travel forever at an 

 ever increasing pace, is measured by the town lots, pianos, fine car- 

 pets, fancy buggies and other things which are the true heritage of 

 the American farmer. 



It was a sad awakening to find there was some mistake about 



