

248 



THE IREIQATION AGE. 



well be predicted that a score of years hence every acre 

 will be reclaimed to cultivation. 



Experiments in underflow pumping are now being 

 pursued along such consistent and successful lines that 

 it may be prophesied that the pump will one day play 

 a most important part in the irrigation field. Govern- 

 ment Surveys are besieged with requests for investi- 

 gation to determine source and reliability of underflows 

 in various parts of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and 

 Kansas. Community interest has been awakened, and 

 from Dakota to California in every state of the west 

 pumping plants for individual or co-operative use are 

 being installed. 



There is no clearer indication of the favor that 

 attaches to irrigation bonds than is found in the fact, 

 that issues are readily handled by the bond selling 

 houses of Chicago, New York and other commercial 

 centers. It is only through the popular demand for 

 these securities that mammoth irrigation companies 

 may be formed. Eeports from bond sellers show that 

 there is no abatement in the sale and that the tone of 

 the market is strong and well based. 



Co-ordinate in importance to the steady demand 

 for irrigation paper is the gradually increasing inquiry 

 for information relating to the conditions under which 

 land may be acquired, the cost of building, tools, pro- 

 duction of crops and markets for products. Wage-earn- 

 ing members of the community are watching with in- 

 terest the reports of a friend who has gone west to take 

 land in an irrigation project. Each is, perhaps, con- 

 vinced of the need for change from his present mode 

 of living, but, with a family dependent upon his efforts, 

 fears to face a change in life until he has learned the 

 truth through a personal acquaintance. 



It is well that the west is alive to the time-signs 

 and is preparing for the vast exodus of people from the 

 east to happy homes amid the flowers and sunshine. In 

 this prospective change lies the solution of the much- 

 mooted question as to the cause of the high cost of 

 living, and the American people are not slow to reach 

 the obvious conclusion. 



YUMA OPENING 



By the terms of its charter, the Minnesota River Improve- 

 ment and Power Company, with headquarters at St. Paul, 

 Minn., has authority to drain and irrigate lands on the Min- 

 nesota river or its tributaries. Among the directors are Wm. 

 H. Gold of Redwood Falls, H. Soreline of Granite Falls, 

 Dr. L. A. Fritchie of New Ulm and Geo Atchison of Man- 

 kato. 



Farmers near Douglas, Ariz., are instituting tests for 

 pumping water for irrigation purposes. In Sulphur Springs 

 Valley, near that city, experiments will be conducted with a 

 view to determining what supply is available. In the event 

 these are successful, many pumping plants will be installed. 

 Geo. Turvey, four miles west of Douglas, has already demon- 

 strated the practicability of the plan, and experiments will 

 determine whether or not the underflow is adequate at other 

 points. 



Facts Relating to Secretary Ballinger's Ruling on Entries 

 Stops Strong Arm Method and Insures Fair Play. 



[In our editorial columns appears an article bearing upon 

 the recent opening of the "Yuma" Indian lands and the 

 method inaugurated by the Secretary of the Interior to ensure 

 a fair disposal of these valuable lands, and which were made 

 the basis of a recent newspaper attack upon Secretary Bal- 

 linger. The "Age" has made the "opening" the subject of a 

 searching investigation and it feels that it is doing a real 

 service in presenting an impartial statement of the actual 

 facts.] 



The Yuma project is situated in townships fifteen and 

 sixteen south, range 23 east, of the San Bernardino base 

 and meridian in the extreme southeastern corner of the 

 State of California. The lands being a portion of the Yuma 

 Indian Reservation, authority to dispose of them under the 

 reclamation act of June 17, 1902 (32 Stat, 388), was granted 

 by the twenty-fifth section of the act of Congress of April 

 21, 1904 (33 Stat., 224). 



It having been ascertained that water could be furnished 

 for this project during the irrigation season of 1910, notice 

 of the opening was issued by the Interior Department Janu- 

 ary 12, 1910, which notice provided that homestead entries 

 could be made at the local land office at Los Angeles, on 

 and after March 1, 1910, beginning at 9 o'clock a. m. This 

 notice did not specify in what manner or order applications 

 would be received and disposed of otherwise than as regularly 

 prescribed by the Federal Statute and Regulations, as it 

 was not supposed there would be any unusual demand for the 

 lands. On February 18th, ten days before the opening, the 

 register and receiver of the land office, at Las Angeles wired * 

 the General Land Office that a line was then formed for 

 the Yuma opening, of which the police had assumed charge 

 and issued numbers to parties holding places in the line, 

 and requested authority to recognize the persons holding such 

 numbers as entitling them to make entry, provided they re- 

 tained places in line until the day of the opening. 



It thus became apparent that there would be much greater 

 demand for the lands than had been originally anticipated. 

 The land office at Los Angeles is in a large commercial 

 building situated in an active business center of the city; 

 the line of two or three hundred people, which was regular 

 and orderly on February ISth, would undoubtedly become 

 disorganized and uncontrollable when it reached as many 

 thousand on the day of the opening, and, as ten days would 

 elapse before such opening, the confusion which would na- 

 turally arise if the order of application were permitted to 

 depend upon numbers given out by the local police, ovet\^ 

 whom the Federal officers could exercise no control, can be 

 readily understood. Serious difficulty and personal contro- 

 versy, in some cases even extending to bloodshed, has here- 

 tofore been experienced in making the order in which per- 

 sons might present applications to enter public lands depend 

 upon the physical strength and endurance of individuals 

 seeking opportunity to make entry. 



Furthermore, the prospect of the purposes of standing 

 in line at the Los Angeles land office being entirely defeated 

 by parties going directly on the lands and between 12 o'clock 

 midnight on Feb. 28th and 9 o'clock a. m. on March 1st 

 making actual settlement with a view to acquiring prefer- 

 ential right to the respective tracts of which physical posses- 

 sion was acquired was suggested; such procedure would 

 have given rise to inevitable conflict between the party filing 

 application for a given tract and the person in possession 

 thereof and establish a fruitful source of personal conflict 

 involving probable breaches of the peace and legal controversy 

 which would have indefinitely delayed development. 



It was to avoid these difficulties and obtain an orderly 

 disposition of the matter that on February 19th the register 

 and receiver were instructed to disregard the line and num- 

 bers assigned by the police and secure the Shrine Auditorium, 

 or some other suitable building, for March 1st, the doors 

 of which should be opened for the admission of applicants 

 between the hours of 8 and 9 o'clock a. m., when the doors 

 were to be closed and locked, all applicants then present 

 identified, and authorized to file applications on or before 

 a given date (later fixed as March 19th), the applications 

 so filed to be treated as simultaneous. It was further directed 

 that where two or more applied for the same tract, direc- 



