THE IKBIGATION AGE. 



ble assurance that it is being improved and made 

 productive, and thereby contributing its share to the 

 public welfare. It transfers the responsibility of pro- 

 viding the means for reclaiming the land, protecting the 

 investor who furnishes the money for accomplishing this 

 and also of safe-guarding the interests of the settler, 

 to the State which is the proper custodian of this re- 

 sponsibility. 



While it may be admitted that the national gov- 

 ernment has some measure of responsibility in securing 

 the best results in the utilization and reclamation of its 

 public domain, it has by indifference and negligence 

 shirked this responsibility so long that other agencies 

 more directly and intimately concerned have acquired 

 a vested right in that responsibility. The pioneers in 

 the field of irrigation after struggling with the most 

 adverse conditions and hardships, and after expending 

 hundreds of millions of dollars, have created conditions, 

 developed communities, established systems of local 

 laws and have acquired a practical knowledge and ex- 

 perience that entitles them to a prior right in the 

 exercise of jurisdiction and control in the work of re- 

 clamation. Therefore any plan or scheme that seeks 

 to transfer the control and administration of irriga- 

 tion affairs from the several States to the general 

 government at Washington is regarded as an encroach- 

 ment upon the rights of the State and an interference 

 with individual prerogative acquired under local cus- 

 tom and law and meets with more or less hostility on 

 the part of those largely interested in irrigation affairs. 



The popularity of the Carey Act arises from the 

 fact that it seems to conserve to the best advantage all 

 the varying interests involved in the problem of recla- 

 mation. 



Procedure under the Carey Act of Idaho is as fol- 

 lows: 



An association, a corporation or a community of 

 settlers may apply to the State Board of Land Com- 

 missioners for the segregation of the area of public 

 land that it is desired to reclaim. In doing this it is 

 necessary to file with the board a statement, accompanied 

 by maps, plans, etc., showing the source of the water 

 supply, its character and the manner of its diversion, 

 a description of the works proposed, an estimate of the 

 cost, the price per acre that will be charged for a water- 

 right and the legal sub-divisions to which the water is 

 to be applied and such other information as the board 

 may require for a full and complete understanding of 

 the case. The application is then submitted to the state 

 engineer for investigation, and if reported upon favor- 

 ably the board then considers it in relation to its vari- 

 ous legal requirements, and if it meets with all of the 

 state requirements it is then sent to the secretary of 

 the interior, with the request that the land be segregated 

 and placed under the provisions of the Carey Act, and 

 it again passes under official scrutiny. If favorably 

 received by the interior department the State Board en- 

 ters into a contract with the parties interested for the 

 construction of the^ works. This contract provides not 

 only for the construction, which must be done under 

 the supervision of the State Engineer and to the sat- 

 isfaction of the Board, but it also provides for the 

 payments by the settlers, as the works will belong to 

 the settlers when finally paid for, the time for final 

 payment being ten years. The control and administra- 

 tion of the works shall remain in the hands of the 

 construction company for such a time as may be pre- 



scribed by the board, when it shall be turned over to 

 the water users. 



For the purpose of securing the necessary money 

 the construction company is allowed to mortgage its 

 equity in the project, the security, of course, being the 

 contracts with the settlers for the purchase of the 

 water-right, which in reality is the price the settler 

 pays for his land, with his proportionate share in the 

 ditch. The only conditions imposed upon the settler 

 are that he shall occupy and improve his land until he 

 secures his patent, which he may obtain at any tune 

 when he completes his payments, and that he is lim- 

 ited to the ownership of 160 acres until the project 

 passes out of the control of the state and into the 

 hands of the settlers, when he can purchase the entire 

 settlement if he has the ability and means for doing 

 so, as every American citizen claims the inalienable 

 right to acquire and dispose of property without super- 

 vision, restriction or hindrance, providing, of course, 

 he does it in an honest and legitimate manner. 



All things considered, a more satisfactory plan or 

 scheme for reclaiming the desert domain could hardly 

 be devised. 



The total acreage embraced in the various Carey 

 Act projects already accomplished and now under way 

 in Idaho is about 500,000, and probably another 500,000 

 acres would have been in process of reclamation by now 

 had it not been for the encroachments of the National 

 Reclamation Service and the withdrawal by the Gov- 

 ernment of practically all the remaining irrigable lands 

 of the state, amounting to nearly four millions of acres. 



The total number of reclaimed desert accredited 

 to the Carey Act in all the various states would prob- 

 ably amount to several million acres, notwithstanding 

 the fact that it has never been found necessary to main- 

 tain an energetic "press bureau" or extensive advertising 

 agencies to advocate its merits or proclaim its achieve- 

 ments. 



Let us now consider briefly the National Recla- 

 mation Law and the plan of its operation in contrast 

 with the Carey Act. It has been in force now nearly 

 four years certainly a sufficient length of time for the 

 officials in charge of its execution to have formulated 

 a plan or scheme of operation. 



In making these comments I do not wish to be under- 

 stood as offering any protest against the National Recla- 

 mation Law, for there is no reason to suppose that it 

 will not eventually accomplish results largely to the 

 advantage of the western states, but rather to invite 

 attention to certain phases of its interpretation and 

 methods of its execution, and also to the obvious pur- 

 pose and laborious effort of some of the officials charged 

 with the responsibility of its execution to employ it as 

 a means of personal aggrandizement and advertise- 

 ment, thereby lowering the dignity of the law and serv- 

 ing to cheapen it in popular estimation. 



It is difficult to judge as to the manner of de- 

 termining the site for a government project. Pre- 

 sumably the selection is made at the instigation of 

 private interests or by the favor of the official in charge. 

 However it may be, the selection is made and pro- 

 cedure begins in most cases by the organization of a 

 "Water Users' Association," which every land-owner 

 living in the district to be reclaimed and most of the 

 projects are located in districts already more or less 

 occupied is required to join, and the methods em- 

 ployed to force the land owners into these associations 



