160 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Expenses. 



120 sacks seed at $5 per sack 600 



Interest at 8 per cent, on $7,500 



land value 600 



Cost of labor to cultivate and har- 

 vest, at $10 per acre ........ 3,000 



Threshing and sacking 3,000 sacks 



at 20 cents per sack 600 



Expense of irrigating 300 acres. 2 



sacks per acre, 600 sacks afc $4. . 2,400 



Total $ 7,200 



Revenue $12,000 



Expense.... . . ...... 7,200 



.$ 4,800 



Profits 



Or about $16 per acre. 



SHALL THE UNITED STATES LEASE 

 ITS GRAZING LANDS? 



The yioneers of all that widespread' re- 

 gion could be called as witnesses regarding 

 the former and present physical conditions 

 and the destruction of its sole potentiality 

 of wealth. Let one witness utter the tes- 

 timony of all, whether they come from New 

 Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Nevada, or 

 any other state or territory in that domain. 



Mr. Bayless, of Oracle, Arizona, in a 

 letter to the Government agrostologists, 

 says that the rich grasses of San Pedro 

 valley are gone, and that the river chan- 

 nel is cut down from three to twenty feet. 

 The valley is a sandy waste from bluff to 

 bluff. Cutting down the river channel im- 

 pairs or prevents its use for irrigation. 

 These results are due to the use, free and 

 in common, of the land for grazing. The 

 average rainfall still comes, but nature's 

 mode of conservation has been destroyed; 

 and where, twelve years before, 40,000 

 cattle fed and fattened, 3,000 famine- 

 smitten creatures now eke out an existence. 

 Mr. Bayless adds that very few of these 

 cattle were sold or removed from the range, 

 most of them having been left until the 

 pasture was destroyed, when they perished 

 by starvation. The same story can be told 

 of a vast majority of the four hundred 



million acres of grazing lands in the West, 

 which belong to the Federal Government. 

 Cattle have grazed below the point of sus- 

 tenance for them, and sheep have followed 

 to eat what remained to the roots and 

 tramp the surface into dust. The agricul- 

 tural settlers have their freeholds invaded 

 by nomadic flocks and herds. Rival stock- 

 men hold a portion of the range with Win- 

 chesters. Homicides redden the struggle 

 for survival, and a great industry is dying 

 of starvation. The whole region has less 

 water for irrigation, and yearly grows less 

 inviting to the settler who seeks a home 

 supported by that means. Is it not possi- 

 ble to end the struggle, to call back the 

 forage, to stop the march of the desert, to 

 restore the equilibrium of nature? 



The Secretary of Agriculture, the hy- 

 drographers and agrostologists, and every 

 thoughtful observer who lives in contact 

 with these distressing conditions, are 

 agreed in their suggestion of the means of 

 restoration. They are not without a prece- 

 dent to support their advice. The stock 

 ranges of Australia, under the same phys- 

 ical conditions, had the same history. 

 Nearly twenty years ago the Colonial Gov- 

 ernments called the stockmen into council, 

 and there was devised a leasing system 

 protecting the rights of agricultural and 

 pastoral freeholders and of large and small 

 stock growers. Each one got a leasehold. 

 He confined his stock to it, changed its 

 grazing ground, and carefully nurtured the 

 re-seeding of the forage, with the result 

 that the carrying capacity of the Austra- 

 lian range is now restored to its virgin 

 state. 



Texas owns her own domain. A vast 

 area of it is pastoral and arid. When used 

 free and in common, the land became bleak 

 and repellent, its forage being destroyed. 

 A steer could barely live on a hundred 

 acres. Less than a decade ago, against the 

 opposition of the stockmen, Texas made a 

 leasing law. Now an area of seventeen 

 acres supports a steer. Tho range is re- 

 stored, and a proposition to repeal the lease 



