THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



149 



and moral ideals, and so established will eventually be 

 applied to all monopolies, both natural and artificial, 

 wherever found. 



Section 8 of the National Irrigation Act reads as 

 follows: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed as 

 affecting or intended to affect or to in any way interfere 

 with the laws of any State or Territory, relating to the 

 control, appropriation, use or distribution of water used 

 in irrigation, or any vested right acquired thereunder, 

 and the Secretary of the Interior, in carrying out the 

 provisions of this Act, shall proceed in conformity with 

 such laws and nothing herein shall in any way affect any 

 right of any State or of the Federal Government, or 

 of any land owner, appropriator or user of water in. to or 

 from any interstate stream or the waters thereof : Pro- 

 vided, that the right to the use of water acquired under 

 the provisions of this Act shall be appurtenant to the 

 land irrigated, and beneficial use shall be the basis, the 

 measure and the limit of right." 



It will be observed that the National Irrigation 

 Act, now a part of the law of the land, recognizes three 



THE WONDERFUL TRANSFORMATION OF 

 SOUTHWEST TEXAS. 



BY WM. DOHERTY, 



General Passenger Agent St Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway, 

 Corpus Cbristi, Tex. 



Former conditions in Southwest Texas disputed 

 and contradicted themselves. Adequate and apparent 

 resources, which were synonymous with opportunity, 

 and which argued for progress, were opposed by a 

 deficit in certain essentials which made advancement 

 and development impossible. Despite the favorable- 

 ness and even attractiveness of conditions in many re- 

 spects, deficiencies in others opposed every effort in 

 the direction of development. In other words, condi- 

 tions were disjointed and deformed and the remedies 

 for correcting the ailments were wholly inaccessible. 



When the first settlers took up their residence in 

 Southwest Texas it did not take them long to dis- 

 cover that they had not associated themselves with a 



An Epitome of the Past 



things: State ownership of water; the natural rela- 

 tions of land and water, and the theory of law that 

 beneficial use is the basis of all right. The provisions 

 of this Act must control a uniform system of irrigation 

 law that the States under irrigation institutions must 

 necessarily enact, and, in fact, such enactment is well 

 under way. While the establishment of irrigation in- 

 stitutions may not have an immediate effect upon the 

 general institutions of the States, the mere fact that they 

 recognize principles long recognized as correct by the 

 common law will speedily leaven, once the movement 

 is started, the whole of the statutory law of the land. 



ReaJ Estate 



ing, stock-farming, and trucking, 

 tropical climate, reasonable pricei. 

 WHERE. Address 



QARL/VND B. MILLER, President Falfurrlag Imif ration Co. 



Box I, Palfurrias, Tixas. 



FALFURRIAS, TEXAS, 

 offers exceptional oppor- 

 tunities for general farm- 

 Fine soil, rlowine wells, semi- 

 AGENTS WANTED EVERY- 



in Southwest Texas. 



country of great agricultural possibilities under the 

 then existing conditions. It was plainly apparent to 

 them that while the land of their choice possessed fer- 

 tile soil and magnificent climate in uncurtailed abun- 

 dance, an almost complete absence of any considerable 

 amount of moisture would compel them to direct their 

 energies to other channels if they expected to remain 

 and live. 



It is not strange, therefore, that Southwest Texas 

 has always been known as a laud of cattle, bronchos 

 and ranchmen, and that every effort to induce a de- 

 velopment of any other description was met with sum- 

 mary defeat. 



In the vicinity of Brownsville, things were differ- 

 ent. The city had- to live and, living as it did unto 

 itself, it was compelled to find in itself the solution 

 of all problems that might affect its existence. Experi- 

 ence soon taught the inhabitants that all effort to pro- 

 duce crops under existing conditions was useless. The 



