TEE IRRIGATION AGE. 



55 



of The New York State Fruit Grower's 

 Association: 



"WHEREAS, The one great burden on 

 the husbandry of the United States con- 

 sists in the perpetuation of the superanu- 

 ated policy of the government in giving 

 its arable lands to anybody and everybody 

 who will occupy them, thereby constantly 

 maintaining and increasing a most unfair 

 competition with farmers and orchardists 

 already established, and diverting to the 

 far West thousands of men who would 

 natural!} furnish the much needed force 

 of labor for farmers and orchardists who 

 have bought their lands and paid or agreed 

 to pay for them; and 



WHEREAS, This injury would be con. 

 tinued for many generations longer, should 

 any project be adopted for bringing into 

 a cultivated state the immense tracts of 

 the public domain now arid; therefore 

 be it 



Resolved, That the New York State 

 Fruit Grower's Association in the name of 

 every fruit Grower in the country who has 

 not received his land as a gratuity from 

 the National Government, denounce all 

 projects for irrigating any portion of the 

 public domain at the public expense, every 

 such project being a direct blow at the 

 prosperity of American husbandry at large; 

 and therefore at the best interests of the 

 whole American people, broadly viewed. 



Resolved, That an authenticated copy 

 of these resolutions be forwarded by regis- 

 tered mail to the President of the United 

 States with the request that he withhold 

 executive approval from any bill intended 

 to pave the way for government irrigation, 

 should the advocates of such a measure 

 succeed in securing its passage by the both 

 houses of Congress. 



Resolved. That an authenticated copy 

 of these resolutions be sent under seal and 

 letter postage to every member of Congress 

 from New York. including the two senators. 



Resolved, That a copy of these resolu- 

 tions be mailed to the President of the 



Eastern New York Horticultural Society 

 and the President of the Western New 

 York Horticultural Society, with the re- 

 quest that he endeavor to secure the active 

 co-operation of his society with the fruit 

 growers in opposing energetically every 

 scheme in Congress of the character re- 

 ferred to. 



The editor of the Grape Belt thus re- 

 fers to the action of the Syrrcuse con- 

 vention : ' 'Anti-irrigation resolutions 

 adopted at the Syracuse meeting are re- 

 ceived with a polite request to publish 

 and endorse. We most respectfully de- 

 cline. 



"In the first place we don't know half as 

 much about this great national question as 

 we would like to. Give us facts and we 

 will print them; facts first, resolutions af- 

 terwards. 



"In the second place we gravely doubt 

 whether the movers themselves of said res- 

 olutions have mastered their subject. 



" 'The economic character of ten com- 

 monwealths," says Prof Wm. E. Smythe, 

 "is dominated by the arid land question." 

 We don't believe one in ten of the Syra- 

 cuse meeting can even name these ten 

 states. 



"Thirdly, the irrigation question has far 

 more advanced students in the old world 

 than in the new. 



' 'Look at the stupendous work being car- 

 ried forward by the English government in 

 building a fifty-million dollar dam to throw 

 back for two hundred miles the waters of 

 the Nile. West of the 100th meridian 

 and bounded by the Pacific ocean, land to 

 make an empire, now worthless, can be 

 made valuable. 



"Shall this land, now the property of all 

 the people, forever remain untouched or 

 shall the enterprise and civilizing agencies 

 of the republic rise to the situation? 



"Not hasty resolutions but careful s udy 

 is the demand of the hour, and again 

 makes this splendid plea for a national 

 system of irrigation. 



