234 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



doubt about that. There may not be many parallel cases to this, but 

 in this case the land that will be irrigated will pay for the expense of 

 the reservoir and the ditch many times over, because it is exceedingly 

 valuable. You will hardly find another place such as that in the world. 

 Let us have the facts about it and then let the Government advertise 

 for bids to do it if the Government does not want to do it itself. I 

 would not be in favor of doing that. I think the Government ought to 

 do it. But it ought to be done in some way, because here is a place 

 for from 50,000 to 100,000 people if the land is irrigated. 



The people of the West have good cause to complain when the 

 people of the East object to ordinal y appropriations for the Indian 

 service because it may benefit the whites. Senators talk about this 

 being an entering wedge. I am not in favor of any entering wedge, 

 but I am in favor of investigating and determining whether we can not 

 stop the flow that goes down the Mississippi and keep the water up 

 there and irrigate the West. I am in favor of some experiments. 

 This would be an object lesson worth trying. Great Britain has spent 

 in India over a hundred million dollars in irrigation works, and has 

 continuously spent it, to help develop that country. 



These are great enterprises, and they demand a very large ex- 

 penditure, The debt of India consists in irrigation works and railroads 

 to develop that country, and they have made it very productive. If it 

 had not been for the irrigation works the famine there would have 

 been universal. Famine comes there on account of drought. 



The West will in time be teeming with population. It is bound to 

 come. Two-fifths of the area of the United States is not going to 

 remain a barren waste when everybody knows that it can be reclaimed 

 and be made the most productive land in the world. One acre of irri- 

 gated laud will produce as much as four acres of any other land. You 

 can go into any State of the Union you please, and on land properly 

 irrigated you can raise a maximum crop every year, and generally two 

 or three crops with the water that comes down and fertilizes it. 



This is a great proposition, and it would not be doubted at all if it- 

 had not been condemned as an evil purpose, and the charge made that 

 somebody wanted to swindle the Government; that somebody wanted 

 to rob the Government. When I see $80,000,000 in a river and harbor 

 bill to benefit every little creek and harbor all over the country, and 

 when I see 110,000,000 of that going to protect the farmers in the 

 Mississippi Valley, which ought to be done, I do not think it is a crime 

 to suggest that some of these waters might be kept in reservoirs 

 above, and thus relieve that river and spread the ferrility over a vast 

 region, which will be more fertile than any other we have. Irrigated 

 land is the best land: The time will come when there will be a teem- 

 ing population in those mountains. It may come slowly, but I do not 



