THE IKRIGATION AGE. 



made more liberal for the lands that remain. We be- 

 lieve a homesteader should be allowed 320 acres in- 

 stead of 160 acres, which he could pick from the rich 

 alluvial lands in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. The 

 lands of the far west are a different proposition and 

 the government can afford to be more liberal. 



Another point our association makes. We believe 

 it in the interest of the homesteader, the settler and all 

 western interests for the government to adopt a policy 

 of exchanging lands to enable them to solidify their 

 ranches and their farms, and put them under a higher 

 state of improvement and cultivation than they would 

 where they only owned every other 160 or every other 

 section of land. Our people are pre-eminently "home- 

 builders" and every inducement should be extended by 

 state and federal government to enlarge the population 

 of the western states. 



And now, my fellow-workers what of the night ! 

 Believers in irrigation, are you keenly alive to the 

 superb opportunity just ahead of you, for to no other 

 age has come the same great chance to build a Paradise 

 from the icy hills of Montana to the sand dunes of 

 Arizona, from the plains of Kansas to the orange groves 

 of the golden state. Methinks that that sweet singer, 

 William Bradbury, must have written these wonderful 

 lines after a trip over this vast territory : 



"There, on verdant hills and mountains, 



Where the golden sunbeams play, 

 Purling streams and crystal fountains 

 Sparkle in th' eternal day." 



This will be truly a paradise with water a- home 

 where sunshine and contentment will be the chief cor- 

 ner stones, an ideal, a typical dwelling place for free 

 men, for free women and the sweet children a merciful 

 Providence has given them. This, the great American 

 riddle the utilization oi' the arid plains will be solved 

 under irrigation. I wish to sound sc note of warning. 

 Do not expect everything of the federal government. 

 It has blazed the way, and its efforts should stimulate 

 every western state to aid this measure by state enact- 

 ments and state aid. Do not, my hearers, rely upon 

 either federal government or state government. Beneath 

 and above it all, beyond both aids, rely upon yourselves 

 and your own efforts. Individual and corporate aid 

 will accomplish much more than all the governments on 

 earth. Private capital should be induced, encouraged 

 and coaxed to build dams, lakes and reservoirs. All 

 should be protected in their rights. 



FIELD FOR CAPITAL. 



The great rivers of waters yearly running to waste 

 from the eastern and western slopes of the Rocky 

 mountains will furnish a very inviting field for the 

 investment of capital for the next quarter of a century. 

 Over this, wonderful stretch of territory is my dream of 

 the Elysian fields, opened by the intelligent, God-fearing 

 American husbandman. Away and across these sweep- 

 ing happy hunting grounds of the departed red man 

 of the American fastnesses shall be heard the songs of 

 contented labor harvesting their crops underneath the 

 snow-capped peaks of the Rockies; not watered as was 

 the Eternal city by a giant aqueduct built by slave labor 

 under the lash of the Caesars, but a promised land at 

 home, our home, with streams clear and pure from 

 God's great storehouse in the hills ; the waters from the 

 melting snows, from the mountain streams, pure as 

 the hlueness of the sky overhead, is our supply for rich 

 and poor alike. 



For this new Utopia shall rival the old Arcadian 

 settlement, styled by Longfellow the home of the happy. 

 The poet tells us of Arcadia that irrigation was the 

 sine qui non of their tranquillity, for he says : 

 "Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with 



labor incessant, 

 Shut out the turbulent tides, but at stated seasons the 



flood-gates 

 Opened and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er 



the meadows." 



The history of these American plains has been 

 written in the best blood of the American pioneers. In 

 a; part of this land, the old prophet, Brigham Young, 

 taught his footsore pilgrims to store the mountain water 

 and redeem the deserts, and the faithful followed on and 

 obeyed his injunction of "Live and help live." 



Beyond these rocky fastnesses dwell still the de- 

 scendants of Montezuma in a land flowing with milk 

 and honey. They have conserved every little stream and 

 ma-de the barren mesas bear fruit a hundred fold, and 

 the wandering Spaniard of hundreds of years ago ex- 

 claimed when in sight of the Mount of the Holy Cross : 

 "Sangre de Christo," and the mountains were so named. 



Aye, on and away across the San Bernardino moun- 

 tains we drop into the orange groves of the Pacific, the 

 tropical orchards where the lime, the olive, the pome- 

 granate, the lemon, the orange, the date grow amid 

 hedges of roses and wide fields of lilies. As I drove 

 over the mountain roads surrounding the superb valley 

 of Redlands, Pasadena and Riverside, and beheld below 

 me the wheat fields yellow for the harvest, the orchards 

 with every kind and variety of fruit, free for the picking, 

 and inhaled the odors from hedge and garden and 

 meadows, with songs of the birds and a mellow sun- 

 light over all, while old San Bernardino mountain, 

 whose craggy peaks were white with everlasting snow, 

 formed a picture that mu^t have inspired the poet when 

 he sang: 



"On the other side of Jordan, 

 In the sweet fields of Eden, 

 Where the tree of life is blooming. 

 There is rest for you." 



Here in this matchless territory of the west, sur- 

 rounded by such environments as I have tried to depict, 

 will grow, expand and prosper the American Utopia, 

 not ideal, but everlastingly real, with millions of happy 

 American citizens, with modern comfortable homes, and 

 with people with a charity born into them as wide as 

 our domain, and with characters as strong as our national 

 life. 



THIRTY YEARS OLD. The Christmas (De- 

 cember) number of The Delineator is also the thirtieth 

 anniversary number. To do justice to this number, 

 which for beauty and utility touches the highest mark, 

 it would be necessary to print the entire list of contents. 

 It is sufficient to state that in it the best modern writers 

 and artists are generously represented. The book con- 

 tains over 230 pages, with 34 full page illustrations, of 

 which 20 are in two or more colors. The magnitude of 

 this December number, for which 728 tons of paper and 

 six tons of ink have been used, may be understood from 

 the fact that 91 presses, running 14 hours a day, have 

 been required to print it; the binding alone of the edi- 

 tion of 915,000 copies representing over 20,000,000 sec- 

 tions which had to be gathered individually by Ivuman 

 hands. 



