120 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



water to get the best results out of the soil. You may find some land 

 owners, if there are any on the ground, afraid of the price you ask for 

 a water right even if it is very low. Meet this at the outset with 

 this proposition : 



' 'Perhaps, my dear sir, you think this is paying too much for the 

 whistle. Perhaps it is. You may be the judge of that. Right in this con- 

 tract we will insert a clause that at any time after one, two or three 

 years, (suit yourself about the time) when you think you have paid too 

 dear for the whistle just give it back to us and we will release the lien 

 by which you have secured it on the land." No proposition is more safe. 

 If the land is as good and the water as sure as you have probably rep- 

 resented you could not get the water away from a man who has used 

 it three years for double what he paid for it. 



What is more stupid than to allow several dozen families to scatter 

 over as many square miles, each with a separate lateral to be cleaned 

 and bothered with, each one trying to work out its own salvation in its 

 own ignorant way with no one to show how to irrigate, each one distant 

 from school-house, store and other things that tend to break the lone- 

 liness of a new settlement of the desert? If the land is good and in 

 sufficient quantity for a decent settlement one can find plenty in a body 

 where they can help each other at the start and keep each other 

 company. Hold the whole on one lateral, pushing out only as increas- 

 ing settlement calls for it. 



Remember that every tenderfoot that you "steer" to the land will 

 in some way get hold of the settlers already there, no matter how 

 carefully you may round him up. You should therefore make every 

 one of them a walking advertisement by making him contented. 

 This is not so hard as it might seem and is often more a matter of 

 good intention than of actual performance. But nothing is more in- 

 sane than to expect a success in selling land with a lot of growlers on 

 the ground. When such is the case there is generally some reason for 

 the growling and it does not take the new comer long to discover 

 that something is the matter. When you are least expecting it he 

 escapes from under your wing, rounds up a settler under some shed, 

 and in two minutes your customer is lost. 



I never want to build any more water works without the whole of 

 the construction money in sight before much work is begun. This 

 is very hard to have and some very good works could not possibly be 

 built in that way. Pew irrigation works have ever been built in that 

 way. Nevertheless it is a good rule to follow in the future. It is 

 very interesting to start the snowball down hill and see it gather 

 more and grow in its course provided always that it will do it. But 

 as a rule it will do nothing of the sort. It is more often a new 

 struggle for life at every attempt to raise money, a constant skirmish 

 in which victory is but little better than defeat. As sure as money is 



