THE IRRIGATION AGE 



VOL. XX 



CHICAGO, MARCH, 1905. 



No. 5 



THE IRRIGATION AGE 



With which is Merged 



MODERN IRRIGATION 

 THE IRRIGATION ERA 

 ARID AMERICA 



THE DRAINAGE JOURNAL 

 MID-WEST 



THE FARM HERALD 



THE D. H. ANDERSON PUBLISHING CO., 



PUBLISHERS, 

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Entered at the Postoffice at Chicago, 111., as Second-Class Matter. 



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 GEO. W. WAGNER, Mgr. M. C. JACKSON, Editor, Western Dept. 



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A monthly illustrated magazine recognized throughout the world as 

 the exponent of Irrigation and its kindred industries. It is the pioneer 

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 only publication in the world having an actual paid in advance 

 circulation among individual irrigators and large irrigation corpo- 

 rations. It is read regularly by all interested in this subject and has 

 readers in all parts of the world. The Irrigation Age is 20 years 

 old and is the pioneer publication of its class in the world. 



The decision of the Nebraska State Board 

 Nebraska of Irrigation in the contest between the 

 Irrigation Government and a company who con- 

 Decision, templated developing a project with pri- 

 vate capital near Scott's Bluffs, in that 

 State, is in line with other conditions and decisions 

 where the Government steps in to hamper projectors 

 of private enterprises. To the casual onlooker this 

 decision is in keeping with the well-established opinion 

 that an enlightened handling of such cases binds the 

 land and water together and makes the sale of water 

 impossible. 



It will be noted that Elwood Mead, who is Tin- 

 questionably the best authority on this subject in the 

 United States, says : "The idea of private ownership in 

 water, apart from the land, can not prevail without 

 creating institutions essentially feudal in character." 

 Professor Mead also says that the water lord is even 

 more undesirable than the landlord as the dominating 

 element in society. It should "be noted that the Ne- 

 braska State Board is quoting Professor Mead and 

 others of prominence in support of their decision, but 

 they either willfully ignore the salient features in the 

 case or are ignorant of true conditions. The case 

 against Mr. Leavitt and his associates is undoubtedly 

 the most important matter which has developed since 

 the passage of the reclamation act of June, 1902, in- 

 volving, as it does, the usurpation of rights of pri- 

 vate corporations by the agents of the Reclamation 

 Service, this act placing the United States Govern- 

 ment in the position of an ordinary competitor in a 



purely commercial sense, a competitor of the individual 

 or corporation, a condition, clearly, not contemplated 

 by the framers of the law. 



It is the opinion of THE IRRIGATION AGE that the 

 State Board of Nebraska would not have been so quick 

 to reach a decision in favor of the Government had its 

 members been fully cognizant of the attitude of officers 

 of the Reclamation Service to a majority of the private 

 projects in the West. 



The- trouble is that there is a general belief that 

 the Reclamation Service is going to make every man 

 in the arid West rich and the public does not know 

 that the officers of this bureau are conducting affairs 

 with a high hand, are deliberately opposing a large 

 number of private irrigation enterprises, many of which 

 were in operation years before the passage of the re- 

 clamation act of 1902 ; nor is it known that this com- 

 bination has in operation an active press bureau, which 

 misleads the local papers in sections where Govern- 

 ment work is contemplated or going on. This press 

 bureau keeps before the people in different localities 

 extravagant representations of what the Government is 

 intending to do and conveys the impression that much 

 more would be done by it were the private projects 

 killed or materially hampered in their work of de- 

 velopment. THE IRRIGATION AGE can cite cases in 

 Idaho, Washington and elsewhere of unwarranted in- 

 terference, bordering, in certain cases, on malice or 

 a narrowness hardly to be expected from officers of a 

 Government founded on our broad lines. This position 

 is all the more exasperating to people managing private 



