70 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



a citizenship as ever trod the earth. To create a race of 

 "water tenants" of them and their like from other parts of 

 the Union who were actually disposed to become home-build- 

 ers there is impossible, and should have been unthinkable. 

 It was not that men were wanting who were able to live a year 

 or two and meet the payments of water rental ; it was not bad 

 land laws as found in the several states, though these laws did 

 doubtless need revising; it was not the speculative holding 

 of land along the water route. There were hosts of people 

 throughout the country who wanted these lands as home- 

 steads they knew the value of these new soils but they 

 would bear no hampering of their 'independence ; they would 

 suffer no uncertainty as to the value of their holdings due 

 to a corporate control of their water supply ; they did not pro- 

 pose, after years of labor, perhaps, and having brought their 

 places into a high state of cultivation, to have their supply 

 of water, which was absolutely essential to their life, raised 

 just below the prohibitive point, or if they were found agi- 

 tators for a more tolerable condition, cut off entirely. It was 

 for this reason that the corporate ownership of these mighty 

 works of irrigation has failed as a speculative venture, and 

 however much we may sympathize with the guileless and hope- 

 ful investors who have lost their money, we recognize th'eir 

 loss as making mightily for the betterment of the whole people. 

 While the management of the companies which were in- 

 corporated for the purpose of building vast irrigating systems 

 have been unable to induce settlers to occupy their lands with 

 anything like a sufficient rapidity to save them from bank- 

 ruptcy, nevertheless, taking the irrigated country as a whole, 

 thousands and thousands of men did undertake to settle there, 

 and they are the men whom we must thank for securing the 



