THE IKRIGATION AGE. 



213 



not support one human being, will now, after irriga- 

 tion, support a family of five persons. In Southern 

 California before irrigation you could buy land for one 

 sheep per acre, but now, after having been irrigated 

 and planted in orchards, the land is worth from $500 

 to $1,000 per acre. The Southern California lands are 

 peculiarly adapted to citrus fruits. They are such 

 varied climates, altitudes, latitudes, and other varied 

 circumstances to make the arid West furnish some one 

 locality, or more, especially adapted for each of the 

 orchard, garden, and field products. One chief indus- 

 try is grazing, and will always be so. 



The arid West was lirst in the interest of miners, 

 second of cattle and sheep kings, and third of land 

 speculators ; all are marked strongly of speculative craze 

 to make big money. The evolution of these several 

 periods are of social and economic interest, because they 

 have retarded the bona fide farmer settlers. While farm- 

 ing is the mainstay of any country, yet it can not afford 

 to pay more than 6 per cent interest during all series 

 of years. The speculative regime of the West has, till 

 within the last few years, kept interest up to 12 per 

 cent, or more. This has been a hindrance to the proper 

 development of irrigation, or irrigation farming. 

 Hence, had our pilgrim fathers landed in the West 

 instead of the East the agriculturalists would have 

 escaped the speculative disadvantage with which they 

 have had to contend. 



The United States Government is forcing the cattle 

 and sheep kings to take their fences from around Gov- 

 ernment land, encouraging homesteaders to take from 

 forty to 160 acres each upon proof of five year resi- 

 dence, and a reasonable amount of improvement, and 

 finally is making other and most liberal provisions by 

 which bona fide settlers can buy other lands capable 

 of irrigation and enable them to have their lands irri- 

 gated in parcels from twenty to 160 acres each, with 

 partial payments of ten-year installments. When the 

 major part of the money is paid toward the cost of the 

 irrigating plant consisting usually of the reservoir, head 

 gates and main canal, the management of the irrigat- 

 ing plant is turned over to the owners of the land so 

 irrigated. The United States Government policy seems 

 clear to encourage the bona fide homesteader of small 

 capital. This policy is very fortunately in line of the 

 natural evolution of every country that has excess, or 

 lack, of rainfall. That is toward individual ownership 

 of small land holders. Expensive drainage, or expen- 

 sive irrigation forces small holdings in the land. Small 

 holdings force intensive farming, careful rotation of 

 crops and necessary enrichment of the soil by fertilizers. 

 The happiest and most successful small farmer is the 

 owner of the soil. He is assured of bread and butter 

 for himself and family. 



Under this regime the small farmer becomes so- 

 cially and economically the mainstay of the State. 

 North Scotland, Holland and Central China, are his- 

 torical examples. The first and second is the regime 

 of getting rid of excessive water in swamps and bogs. 

 Holland, as a government policy, credited tramps and 

 hoboes for labor done till a small sum was saved up 

 for which the state gave each a piece of the land re- 

 claimed. It is said many of these hoboes have become 

 substantial farm owners in the low lands of that coun- 

 try. Poor people of Scotland were credited for labor 

 performed in reclaiming the swamps and afterward be- 



came owners of small parcels of the land their labor 

 helped to reclaim. The Bank of Scotland did this by 

 issue of bank notes. Such issue in this country has 

 swamped our state and private banks nearly every time 

 it has been tried. The typical American is such a specu- 

 lative "cuss" he Lever has attempted such free banking 

 without going oeyond all reason and ending in bank- 

 ruptcy. I cite this, not so much to illustrate the excel- 

 lent free banking of Scotland as to illustrate the cer- 

 tainty of profit in reclaiming swamp and arid lands. 

 These lands are so wonderfully productive after they 

 are once prepared for cultivation. Nature has ordained 

 that where capital and labor are properly and justly 

 combined to bring together two, or more, of her great 

 forces, naturally, or ordinarily, separated, she will re- 

 ward man not only in fifty, seventy-five, but an hundred- 

 fold ; such, for example, are air and sunlight to swampy 

 soil, and water to an arid soil. 



Thus nature points out the way how labor and cap 

 ital together may win her prizes. Not only this, but 

 she points out how the laborer may become the small 

 owner of her soil and co-operate with others to win a 

 spot of ground which shall not only spread their patha 

 with flowers, but their tables with plenty. 



The land owners in an arid valley must cooperate in 

 storing the water that runs away in flood season and 

 in conducting the water by canals and ditches, where 

 and when it is needed for the growing crops. One of 

 the greatest needs of our country in this age of deadly 

 competition among toilers for wages and the vast con- 

 solidation of capital in manufacture and speculative 

 enterprises is cooperation. The cooperation in log roll- 

 ing was only temporary among the earlier colonists, but 

 the cooperation in managing irrigation, or drainage, will 

 be a continued process, constantly exercised and im- 

 proved by time and experience. Our general govern- 

 ment and the several arid states are looking to that end. 

 While some, or perhaps all to some extent, of the arid 

 states have anticipated somewhat in passing ideal, or 

 theoretical, laws, regulating irrigation plants, yet already 

 it seems wiser to let the owners of the irrigated land 

 work out somewhat for themselves what they find best 

 in many minor details of management, then the law 

 may be enacted rather in accordance with the experience 

 of owners in any given community; because the same 

 regulations under different conditions as they are in 

 different states, or territories, will not answer in all. 

 For that matter, conditions differ very materially in the 

 same State, especially since any one of our western 

 States is very large admitting of varied circumstances 

 the point is, the cooperative experience and effort 

 gives the cue to State action in the manner of regulation. 



The Mormon settlement in Utah having had 

 scarcely no capital their cooperative and personal labor 

 demonstrated beyond all quibbling a successful coopera- 

 tion in irrigation farming. Their isolation far from 

 any older community and their lack of experience in 

 dealing with arid conditions made their success wonder- 

 fully brilliant in planting homes in the arid regions. 

 So, also, the Greeley colony in Colorado, on the tribu- 

 taries of the South Platte. These two colonies built 

 no expensive dams, but their irrigation consisted of 

 diverting ditches from the streams and directing the 

 main ditches so as to accommodate as much lands as they 

 owned, or as far as the amount of water sufficed. 



In some instances, corporation capital has biiilt 

 great reservoirs, but failed because the capitalist did not 



