THE ARID WEST. 



Many men who decide to go West and invest their small capital in arid lands 

 which, by the aid of irrigation, will, be made fruitful farms, do not investigate as 

 thoroughly as they should before risking their little all, and disappointment and 

 failure is the inevitable result. It is with the view of informing prospective 

 settlers of the actual conditions which prevail in the arid regions that we give the 

 following extract from the bulletin, prepared by J. C. Ulrich, on "Irrigation in the 

 Rocky Mountain States. " The introductory portion of this bulletin and also that 

 relating to the various methods of applying water to land, was given in the AGE last 

 month and we will now take up the cost and conditions of reclamation, of which 

 Mr. Ulrich speaks as follows: 



"A serious mistake is involved in the assumption that the immigrant to the 

 arid West has only to homestead or purchase a quarter section of land and at once 

 become a prosperous and successful farmer. This would be possible if the land 

 secured were at the time of its acquisition developed and highly improved. Lands 

 of this description are available throughout this region, but in most cases they 

 command prices equal to those prevailing in the humid states for lands of similar 

 quality and equal productiveness and proximity to markets. They are, therefore, 

 oat of the reach of settlers of limited means. Those offered for sale by the various 

 irrigation companies are almost without exception raw and unimproved prairie lands, 

 upon which much development work must be done in the way of breaking and 

 subduing the native sod, leveling, erecting fences and buildings, constructing 

 ditches, etc. These lands can usually be bought at very moderate figures, and upon 

 very favorable terms. They are, as a rule, capable of being developed into farms of 

 superior fertility and productiveness; but they can be brought into this condition 

 only at the expense of great labor and a considerable investment of time. 



"Similar conditions prevail in those cases where the settler homesteads land 

 from the government and creates his own water-supply facilities under the individual 

 plan. His land in this case, nominally, costs him nothing, and if he does the work 

 of development and improvement himself he may get along without the expenditure 

 of much actual money; but if he should figure up the cost, at its market priee, of the 

 labor and time which he has devoted to the work, he would discover that the farm 

 thus acquired, practically without cash, had in reality involved an expenditure 

 largely in excess of anything which he had anticipated at the outset, and we will 

 then understand why well-improved farms in the arid regions, which originally cost 

 nothing for the raw land, sell for as much as similar farms in the well settled states 

 of the humid region. Nor is there any good reason why they should not do so, since 

 a fertile, well-improved, and well-located ranch in this region, which has a satis- 

 factory supply of water for irrigation, will, under skillful and intelligent manage- 

 ment, as a rule, yield a profitable return upon the investment represented by its 

 cost; and this is especially true in those cases where the actual settler acquires raw 

 lands and improves them himself through his own labor and without the expendi- 

 ture of cash, The labor and the hardships involved may appear trying and burden- 



