THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



375 



can be done with irrigation, but with the perversity 

 of inanimate things the natural forces all seem to 

 combine against giving the pumping plant a satisfac- 

 tory trial. There is no doubt that years of drouth will 

 come when irrigation will be badly needed, but at 

 present the farmers are growing good crops by de- 

 pendence upon natural rainfall. 



The engineers are continuing their investigations 

 and will soon be able to make a full report upon tha 

 Red River project. They will also make investigations 

 as .to the quantity and quality of underground waters 

 with reference to their use for irrigation. If these 

 investigations prove satisfactory as to the water sup- 

 ply, another pumping plant will probably be installed 

 for experiment with ground waters. The surveys and 

 investigations in Oklahoma will not cease until a prac- 

 ticable project is found, or it is demonstrated that the 

 proper conditions do not exist for economical irrigation. 



The 



Reclamation 



Service. 



A significant change has taken place in 

 the attitude of the people of the West 

 toward the Reclamation Service. When 

 the work began four years ago there was 

 heard on all sides the statement that the Government 

 should not interfere with private development, fears 

 were expressed that in the great works to be built 

 the Government would in some way interfere with 

 money-making by individuals. 



In one sense it has been impossible not to interfere 

 with private enterprise, since on nearly all projects 

 some individual or another has made filings on lands 

 or waters and was endeavoring to sell these filings to 

 Eastern investors. The construction by the Govern- 

 ment of a single large project, developing the country to 

 its utmost, has frequently, in the minds of promoters at 

 least interfered with their smaller schemes. This 

 condition is being changed. All of the projects 

 to be considered during the next few years have been 

 determined upon, and all questions of private rights 

 have been practically settled by purchase or agreement. 

 Now comes the demand for more work, and in the 

 anxiety to extend operations the promoters have for- 

 gotten their fear that the Government would interfere 

 with private enterprise, and are more fearful that it 

 will not interfere in the sense that it will not buy out 

 the various claims which are being offered for sale. 



The experience of the Secretary of the Interior 

 in buying these claims and in extinguishing the various 

 vested rights under different projects has led to extreme 

 caution. There is little probability that he will make 

 any further purchases until the works now in hand 

 are completed and are refunding money to the Treas- 

 ury. The demand for a large increase to the reclama- 

 tion fund does not meet with much sympathy from the 

 authorities who have been endeavoring to negotiate 

 these purchases. 



J. H. Kurtz, who represented the State 

 Mr. Kurtz's of Pennsylvania as delegate to the four- 

 Views, teenth National Irrigation Congress at 

 Boise, as the specially designated repre- 

 sentative of Governor Pennypacker, is a resident of 

 Ephrata, in Lancaster county, Pa., though he has been 

 in Ogden, Utah, since last December, settling up the 

 matters of the estate of his brother, Thomas J. Kurtz. 

 Mrs. Kurtz, who also attended the congress as a dele- 

 gate, represented Utah, having been especially ap- 

 pointed by Mayor E. M. Conroy, of Ogden, and the 

 pair, always being together and wearing the badges of 

 two such distant States, were the subjects of much 

 jocular comment. 



Mr. Kurtz was one of the men who favored the 

 taking of the next congress to Jamestown, Va., and 

 voted for this from the first to the last. As is well 

 known, the decision was in favor ,of Sacramento. It 

 was riot because of localism that he favored a session 

 of the congress in the East, but because he has ideals 

 of his own that he wishes to put into practical effect 

 for the reclamation of the arid lands of the West. He 

 urged a conference and congress to be held in some of 

 the Eastern States, and as near to Washington as pos- 

 sible, for the reason that he has studied the question 

 and sees that the reclamation fund is being depleted. 

 He explained his views in these words : 



"If the grand plan of reclaiming the millions of 

 acres of the arid lands of the Rocky Mountain country 

 is carried to a finality, money will have to be raised 

 by Congress. If we hold all of the irrigation con- 

 gresses out West the bulk of the lawmakers in our 

 national legislature will not learn our necessities. One 

 congress, with the exhibits of fruits and grains that 

 are raised in the West by irrigation, held in some of 

 the populous Eastern States would give congressmen 

 and senators a chance to see what is being attempted, 

 and with success, on what was once a series of deserts." 



Mr. Kurtz has been the representative of the State 

 of Pennsylvania at the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and 

 fourteenth irrigation congresses. The first was in 

 1903, at Ogden, where he is now residing, perhaps 

 temporarily; the next at El Paso, Texas, in 1904; the 

 third at Portland, in 1905, and this year the four- 

 teenth, at Boise, Idaho, believed to be the most suc- 

 cessful in material results of any congress heretofore 

 held. 



Mr. Kurtz states that it is not only that the big 

 end of the people's representatives in the national 

 legislature might get better and broader ideas of the 

 reclamation of the arid lands of the West, and of the 

 advantages from that reclamation that would ensue to 

 the nation, but also to present the actual conditions to 

 the people so that they would understand the great 

 possibilities that exist in this section. He sees, by 

 such a congress held in some of the Eastern States, a 



