THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



41 



discussions of the present Congress, and 

 that legislation will be enacted which will 

 iaaugurate a new era in industrial devel- 

 opment in the West. The world wide 

 movement toward the Pacific which has 

 followed our recent achievments in war 

 and commerce has awakened an interest 

 in the vast undeveloped region which sep- 

 arates the humid East from that ocean, 

 and has stimulated a desire for its settle- 

 ment. Expansion abroad promises to be 

 followed by an equally momentous expan- 

 sion at home. There are ether reasons 

 why this subject is likely to receive atten- 

 tion from Congress. Hereafter those who 

 seek homes on the public domain must 

 look for them in the arid part of the United 

 States, where cultivated crops cannot be 

 grown by the aid of rainfall alone. The 

 homestead of the future must be irrigated. 

 Before the settler can plant his fields with 

 any hope of reaping a harvest, he must 

 provide the water supply which the clouds 

 do not furnish; and ability to do this will 

 be the measure of settlement. The immi- 

 grant working alone cannot accomplish 

 this. Formerly he could do so, but not 

 now. The land which could be watered by 

 small, cheap ditches has all been filed upon. 

 The further extension of the watered area 

 requires either the diversion of large riv- 

 ers or the storage of water which now flows 

 down from the mountains, when it cannot 

 be used. In order to do either of these 

 things costly dams must be built to with- 

 stand the floods which beat against them; 

 great canals, extending for miles to the 

 remote tablelands, will have to be exca- 

 vated; and expert engineering talent must 

 be employed to design these structures and 

 to prepare not less important plans for the 



management of the commerce in water 

 which their construction will create. The 

 day of individual effort has passed. Suc- 

 cess in the future requires the organiza- 

 tion of the irrigation industry and the 

 expenditure of public or corporate funds 

 on a scale not heretofore possible. Before 

 rivers like the Missouri, the Big Horn, 

 the Green, or the Columbia can be put to 

 use, irrigation works must be built rival- 

 ing in magnitude and cost those along the 

 Ganges and the Nile. 



This will not be done until there has 

 been legislation by Congress. The arid 

 states cannot do it because they have 

 not the means. Private capital will 

 not, because experience has shown that 

 costly private works to reclaim public 

 lands are not profitable. Only Congress, 

 as the custodian of the public domain, can 

 provide the conditions indispensable to 

 satisfactory progress. Because of these 

 facts agricultural settlement in the West 

 has been for many years slow, and unless 

 more favorable conditions are secured the 

 reclaiming of public land will soon be 

 practically at an end. The conquest of the 

 desert is a great undertaking, and even 

 with all the aid Congress can be induced 

 to extend, progress hereafter will not be 

 rapid. 



The desire of the West, however, is not 

 so much for rapid development as for the 

 creation of better social and industrial con- 

 ditions. The first generation of home- 

 makers is not longing for new ditches, 

 new settlers, or increased demands on the 

 water supply until it is assured of relief 

 from the evils and uncertainties incident 

 to the haphazard development of the past. 



