606 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



the happiness of our people, the water reclamation and 

 conservation policy will prove as beneficial as Lincoln's 

 proclamation of emancipation. 



No administration will ever need to apologize for 

 money spent to reclaim waste lands to make them fit for 

 homes. There is no policy of national defense as certain 

 as that which encourages ownership in our soil. Every 

 American citizen that is planted upon a productive acre of 

 land becomes an additional rivet in the armor of national 

 security. It would be a reckless power that would assaii 

 a nation of home owners. In Colorado, the government 

 has just completed the Gunnison tunnel, making as fertile 

 as the Nile valley a domain of arid land for 4,000 modest 

 farms. The cost has been $3,500,000. One battleship costs 

 as much as three Gunnison tunnels without considering 

 that the one is a constant and tremendous liability, while 

 the other is a growing and perpetual asset and dividend 

 payer. Which is the best investment? Apple orchards 

 and alfalfa fields are better nurseries for citizenship than 



The home owner becomes a soldier of defense, enlisted 

 for life. 



Forty-two million of our people do not own their 

 homes. The destiny of our republic will be shaped and 

 determined as we increase or decrease this percentage of 

 tenant Americans. To illustrate the closeness of happi- 

 ness, security and prosperity to the soil, no crop will 

 illustrate better than alfalfa and apples. These are but 

 two out of a hundred golden products of rural life, but 

 they represent small farms, intense cultivation and certain 

 success. They stand for well cultivated lands, for close 

 settled communities, for convenient schools, churches and 

 markets, for telephones, free delivery and for homes 

 blessed with all the conveniences. The 20 or 40-acre apple 

 or alfalfa farm may not admit of a Newport summer home 

 or a yacht upon the sea, but it will be free from the temp- 

 tation, dangers and heart and soul wrecks that so often 

 invade the perfumed white way of luxury. Bonanza mines, 

 commerce and speculation sometimes wins larger prizes 



In 1909 the Dempster Mill Mfg. Co., Beatrice, Nebr., sold one ol their 8 H. P. Horz. Four-cycle Gasoline Engines and a No. 4 Centrif- 

 ugal Pump to a Mr. Phillips about three miles southeast of Longmont, Colo. The plant is shown in the illustration, and demonstrates the 

 efficiency of both engine and pump for irrigation. 



decks of ships or military camps. Free government has 

 no ally as strong, as sure as the home owner. Land and 

 liberty are close allied. A title deed to an acre of land 

 is a guarantee of patriotism. Property owners always de- 

 sire better government. Anarchy makes no recruits among 

 taxpayers. Insurrection never received shelter, sympathy 

 or contribution from the owner of an apple orchard or 

 an alfalfa field. Even socialism stands abashed and im- 

 potent in the presence of a self-reliant, independent owner 

 of a debt free piece of productive land. 



The armies and fleets of Japan are not half the menace 

 to our republic as are the unemployed and propertyless of 

 the country. Idleness and poverty are the breeding ground 

 of riot and revolt. Turmoil and lawlessness brings no 

 harm to those who have nothing. Those who have to 

 pay the cost of disturbance and upheaval, the land and 

 home owner, are the bulwark of stability and safety. Stock- 

 holders make the best guardians of property and institu- 

 tions. Self interest is the most reliable thing in the world. 



but the risk and hazard are greater. Ninety-five per cent 

 of those in the marts of trade fail, of the sons of industry 

 who follow the plow 95 per cent succeed. Their earnings 

 may not be large, but every dollar is bright with the 

 smile of honest toil, and upon them rests the benediction 

 of Almighty God. 



Apples and alflalfa are permanent and abiding, Gold 

 exhausts, it has but one crop, it plants no seed. Civiliza- 

 tion depends upon reproduction, therefore, gold cannot be 

 its prophet and savior. The gold that Solomon mined 

 litters the bottom of the seas, the very mines from which 

 it came are lost but the seed from the apple that played 

 its part in the drama of Eden finds its progeny in the bud 

 and blossom and fruit that glorify the orchards of the 

 twentieth century. For 200 generations the apple has 

 blessed the race, almost making amends for being the 

 cause of man's expulsion from Eden. Alfalfa goes back 

 to the infancy of the world. God made it on the third 

 day of Creation. It has ever been good for man and beast. 



