134 



THE IERIGATION AGE. 



There is a branch of the department of 

 El wood agriculture that is doing a good work 



Mead's for the coming farmer of this country, 



Good Work, but which has attracted but little public 

 attention. This is the division of irri- 

 gation and drainage investigations and is in charge 

 of Prof. Elwood Mead. This division is in the depart- 

 ment of the Office of Experiment Stations and Pro- 

 fessor Mead's work is in direct connection with the 

 Experiment Stations of the various States. 



Professor Mead is now making an extended trip 

 through the Western States for the purpose of plan- 

 ning the work of his department for the coming year. 

 He has been in- close communication with the Iowa 

 Station, which has had charge of the drainage work 

 of that State, and has followed the work there very 

 closely. His department has given the State much 

 valuable aid in the actual work of drainage that has 

 already been done. Professor Mead also spent several 

 days in Western Kansas, where the Government is 

 doing considerable irrigation work, and from there he 

 went to Colorado and inspected the various plans for 

 irrigation that the Government is now carrying out. 

 He is now in California, where he will spend some 

 time in connection with the work that has already 

 been undertaken there by the Government through 

 the State Experimental Station. His entire trip will 

 occupy some three or four months and during that 

 time several experimental plants for irrigation by 

 pumping will be established. One of these will be in 

 New Mexico, another in California and a third in 

 Arkansas. 



The Arkansas experiment will be one of great 

 value to the farmers of that State. Lying to the 

 eastward of Little Eock there are large areas of land 

 that has never been cultivated because they have not 

 been properly drained. The soil, while rich in some 

 elements, does not possess all of the elements neces- 

 sary to the production of ordinary field crops. Pro- 

 fessor Mead believes that this land will make good 

 rice land and he will establish a pumping station under 

 the direction of a competent drainage engineer who 

 will lay out several plots and plant them to rice. 

 Farmers in that section will be invited to visit the 

 station and investigate the work as it progresses. 



From some investigation, on a small scale, car- 

 ried on last year, enough has been learned to warrant 

 the belief that this land will produce large yields of 

 good rice. If this belief is well founded, the State of 

 Arkansas will have another very valuable product 

 added to its agriculture and Professor Mead's depart- 

 ment should have full credit for the work. 



Rice culture in Texas, which has become so im- 

 portant a factor in the production of this country, is 

 due very largely to the intelligent investigation and 

 experiments made by the department of agriculture. 

 Professor Mead is a man of plain practical sense, and 



all of his experiments are conducted solely with the 

 view of teaching the average farmer how to do things 

 properly. He applies science in the simplest way pos- 

 sible and is always careful to make his applications 

 practical and easily understood. 



When the present irrigation bill was be- 

 Then fore Congress the land-grabbing Octopus, 

 and Now. which is composed of the most powerful 

 interests in this country, opposed it bit- 

 terly. They sent their hired agents all over the West 

 to proclaim that there should be no general bill, but 

 that special bills should be passed from time to time 

 for the building of specific works. They denounced 

 everybody who in any way favored the passage of the 

 act and the files of many western newspapers, whose 

 editors were misled by their representations, show that 

 they fought it as vigorously as though it meant the- 

 confiscation of every railroad in the West and the finan- 

 cial destruction of every bloated scrip owner in the 

 country. 



A strong committee representing the Octopus even 

 went so far as to try to raise a doubt in the mind of 

 the President as to the merits of the bill and impress 

 upon him that it was a dangerous and totally unwise 

 measure. They sought a conference with Mr. Roose- 

 velt without notifying the supporters of the bill in 

 the hope that they might so prejudice him against it 

 as to enlist his influence in opposition; but the friends 

 of the bill, including the members of Congress who 

 favored it, were called to a later conference with the 

 President and they, upon their own motion, invited 

 representatives of the Octopus to be present. The 

 President listened patiently to the discussion at this 

 conference, and with his quick grasp of the truth, 

 immediately saw that the objections which had been 

 raised were merely captious and of no real importance. 



No changes of importance were made in the bill 

 after that conference and it passed practically in the 

 form as it came from the original unofficial commit- 

 tee of seventeen which contained a representative or 

 senator from each one of the arid land States and ter- 

 ritories. In spite of this fact, however, the representa- 

 tives of the land-grabbing Octopus sent broadcast the 

 assertion that they had forced vital amendments to ii f 

 and seeing that the bill would be passed in spite of 

 their opposition and that they were unable to emascu- 

 late it in any way, promptly claimed all the credit 

 for it, and ever since that time have championed it a& 

 the fulfilment of their own fondest dreams. 



The object of this sudden conversion is plain. It is 

 to create the false impression that the Octopus is and 

 always has been the honest advocate of the law in 

 order to strengthen its attack upon the land laws. 

 The money to carry out the provisions of the irriga- 

 tion law comes from the sale of public lands, and the 

 repeal of the commutation clause of the homestead act 



