422 THE IRR1GA TION A GE. 



Land Commissioner Binger Herman have prevented them from carry- 

 ing out those purposes, reports have gained currency throughout Ne- 

 braska, and some of them based on more than rumor, that it was the 

 intention of at least part of these men to make extensive experiments 

 in the way of irrigating tracts of so-called arid lands and inviting im- 

 migrants to occupy them as homesteads, hoping for profit through 

 leasing irrigation privileges to the expected agriculturists. 



Despite these rumors the ranchmen would feel no alarm for the 

 future tenancy of their lands were it not for the fact that they know 

 there is scope for the operation of that other unwritten law the com- 

 mercial law of the survival of the fittest. They know better perhaps 

 than any one else that the lands on which their herds find none too 

 fat picking need only water to make them among the richest farming 

 lands of the country. There are possibilities, therefore, in the case 

 of the agriculturist as against the ranchman, and until every means 

 that can be devised by human wit to supply the one thing needed has 

 been tried and found unavailing for that purpose, the question will 

 remain as it is today, an open question. 



This is why with feverish haste the stock raisers of the State left 

 their grazing herds two and three months ago and made straight for 

 the doors of the government land offices in the grazing district to 

 head off, if possible, a threatened invasion of homesteaders. 



The situation makes a study of the map of Nebraska interesting. 

 Where are the grazing lands? Where are the land offices? In what 

 parts of the State are new towns to spring up and elevators to rise 

 over the sites of forsaken cattle pens, in case any one of the various 

 irrigation schemes shall be found feasible? In what directions will 

 new railroad branches be built, and change in that regard the map of 

 the State? 



HIDDEN WEALTH FOR FARMERS. 



All these things hinge on the prospect of a solution of the prob- 

 lem of giving dynamic character to the potential energy of wealth 

 buried in the chalk-like hills of the now arid district of the State. 

 There are hidden gold mines for the farmer in these Nebraska hills, 

 as truly as for the miner in any of the placer diggings, and he needs 

 only the same requisite to make their wealth available water. 



Broken Bow, the county seat of Ouster County and the seat of a 

 government land office, marks practically the geographical center of 

 the State of Nebraska. North and west of it herds that number hun- 

 dreds of thousands are grazing. Southwest, south and east of it the 

 cornfields and grainfields lie in a mosaic of dark green and gold. 



Between Broken Bow and the northwest corner of the State is Alli- 

 ance. Almost due north of Broken Bow is Valentine. At these 

 points are two more government land offices. That these three places 

 marking an almost equilateral triangle, are the centers of the sections 



