176 THE NEW AGKICULTURE. 



bids government from so far disregarding its own deliberate 

 act, as to hold individuals and corporations to arbitrary com- 

 pliance with the letter of acts under which grants have been 

 made. The railroad company, dependent upon the sale of its lands 

 and disposition of its stocks and bonds, is hardly dealt by when 

 government, from having been its patron and promoter, turns 

 about and becomes a bear to destroy its credit and bring upon its 

 ward distress and disaster akin to ruin. 



That our government can make millions of dollars for the people, 

 by entering upon a system of reclamation covering the more hope- 

 ful portions of its desert lands, is so manifest, as to make argument 

 to prove it unnecessary. No longer ago than 1873, under an act of 

 Congress, approved March 3rd of that year, a commission was 

 organized to examine the great valleys of California, with refer- 

 ence to construction of a system of irrigation. The report of this 

 commission will be found in the yearly volume of the Department 

 of Agriculture for 1874. Commenting on this report Mr. Stewart 

 remarks : 



" The conclusions reached may be seriously questioned in many 

 points, but on the whole are, as might have been expected, favor- 

 able, both to the profitableness and feasibility of irrigation works, 

 and to the interference of the national and state governments, 

 and their control over the distribution of the water." 



Commenting further, Mr. Stewart proceeds to say : 



" By no other authority could the conflicting interests of miners, 

 agriculturists and owners of lands to be injured or benefited by 

 the enterprise, be properly reconciled. In Europe, the supreme 

 control is exercised by, and the ownership of the water vested in, 

 the State. The French government in 1669, by special law, re- 

 served the ownership of all rivers and streams, and grants conces- 

 sions to irrigating companies under certain restrictions. In Italy, 



