Forestry and Irrigation. 



VOL. IX. 



SEPTEMBER, 1903. 



No. 9. 



NEWS AND NOTES. 



A Pointer for The Eleventh National 

 the Irrigation Irrigation Congress will 

 Congress. meet at Ogden, Utah, 



September 15-18, fuller 

 announcement of which is given on 

 page 452 of this issue. The questions 

 to come before this congress are matters 

 of vital concern to the entire nation. 

 There will be reports from experts in 

 the lines of irrigation and forestry, dis- 

 cussions of legal complications arising 

 in the field of irrigation, the application 

 of the provisions of the National Irri- 

 gation Act, and the important question 

 of colonization. The open discussion 

 of these topics will undoubtedly be of 

 great value. But an omission, an un- 

 intentional one we trust, is that no direct 

 reference has been made in the prelimi- 

 nary program to the question of the 

 repeal of the existing land laws. If the 

 National Irrigation Act is to bring that 

 measure of value in the development of 

 the arid regions that its framers in- 

 tended, if the development of the West 

 is to proceed steadily and along safe 

 lines, the Desert Land Law, the Timber 

 and Stone Act, and the commutation 

 clause of the Homestead Act must be 

 repealed. At present much of the land 

 that can be made valuable through the 

 carrying out of the provisions of the 

 National Irrigation Act is being gob- 

 bled up by speculators, in many cases 

 fraudulently. If this is allowed to con- 

 tinue, the very purpose of the National 

 Irrigation Act, the providing of homes 

 for the small settler on the public 

 domain, will be defeated. The Eleventh 

 National Irrigation Congress owes the 

 movement for the repeal of the land 

 laws a hearty indorsement. If only 

 this is done by the congress, it will be 

 a decided success. To fail to do it is 



an acknowledgment by the delegates to 

 the congress of their ignorance of the 

 real needs of the West, or acquiescence 

 in the stealing of the public lands that 

 is going on at an alarming rate under 

 the present laws. 



Eastern Interest While on the subject 

 in Repeal of of the repeal of the 

 Land Laws. existing land laws it 

 might be well to remind 

 readers of FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 

 that this is by no means a question for 

 western people only. The disposal of the 

 remaining public domain is a problem 

 of grave importance to every section of 

 the country, .and every patriotic citizen 

 owes it as his duty as such to take an 

 active interest in its solution. The 

 public lands, the only outlet for our rap- 

 idly increasing population, are being 

 gobbled up by speculators. The result 

 will be that soon the only valuable lands 

 for settlement will be in the hands of 

 speculators, who will hold them at such 

 high prices as to discourage small set- 

 tlers, or they will go to make huge 

 ranches and landed estates, thus pre- 

 venting full settlement and development 

 of the West. This acquiring of lands is 

 being done in a manner so glaringly 

 fraudulent as to make the rottenness of 

 some of our municipal governments seem 

 mild in comparison. The land laws have 

 been so perverted from the original in- 

 tent of their framers that they have 

 become a positive menace to the coun- 

 try. The article elsewhere in this issue 

 by William E. Smy the on ' ' The Home- 

 maker or the Speculator ' points out 

 very forcibly the dangerous position 

 the nation is drifting into on the public- 

 land question. 





