280 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



western journals as the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles 

 Times. 



Not long ago the Chronicle said editorially, in the course of an ar- 

 ticle on this subject: "Land given to states is generally turned over 

 by hook or by crook to private speculators. There are few instances 

 where any other result has followed, and on that account the state 

 land-grant proposition is very popular among legislators and lobby- 

 ists who believe that the public owes them a living. " 



The Los Angeles Times republished this article in full, and in 

 commenting on it, among other things, said : 



' ' Bitter experience has taught the people of the United States 

 that such grants, made to states, are almost invariably the source of 

 corruption and scandal. We have enough of that sort of thing at 

 present without inviting more trouble. " 



Now is there a ground upon which those which hold these con- 

 flicting views can and should unite to start the west forward on a new 

 era of development? Undoubtedly there is and one which would 

 remove every existing evil of the open range and at the same time 

 guard against the greater evils which it is feared would result from 

 state cession. 



The key note to such a solution has been struck by Elwood Mead, 

 formerly state engineer of Wyoming, and now consulting engineer to 

 the Department of Agriculture, in an article published in The National 

 Advocate of January, 1897, and by F. V. Coville, the botanist of the 

 Department of Agriculture, in an article published in the Forum of 

 September, 1898. The solution is this: 



That the grazing lands should be leased, and the revenues devoted to the 

 construction of reservoirs and irrigation works and the reclamation of the 

 irrigable lands. 



In his first article Mr. Mead advocated the cession of the lands 

 to the states and the leasing of them by the states. But Mr. Coville 

 took the ground that it was unnecessary that the government should 

 give away the lands in order to establish this system, and in his last 

 Biennial Report as state engineer of Wyoming, Mr. Mead said: 



"The principal reason for advocating cession has been the desire 

 to put an end to range stock controversies which threaten domestic 

 peace; to render irrigated agriculture more profitable, and to secure 

 for the state the funds needed to aid in building large canals and 

 extensive reservoir systems. But all states are not equipped as is 

 Wyoming with a land department for the management of leases, or 

 an engineering bureau for the construction of public works, and in 

 the states differently situated it has been proposed, as a substitute 

 for cession, that the general government should inaugurate a leasing 

 system for the non-irrigable grazing lands to be handled by the 

 general land office in connection with its disposal of the lands which 

 can be farmed, the funds arising from such leases to be expended in 



