THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



335 



ton, United States hydrographer, on "Conservation of 

 Water." 



At the evening session Morris Bien of the United 

 States Reclamation Service spoke on the "Community 

 Idea in the Reclamation Act." 



"The Work of the National Reclamation Service" 

 was the subject discussed by F. H. Newell, director of 

 the Service. It was illustrated with stereopticon views. 



The feature of the session of Wednesday was an 

 address by E. H. Harriman, the railroad magnate, who 

 had stopped off at Sacramento to attend the Congress. 

 Mr. Harriman gave a short address, in which he justi- 

 fied his acts and told the Congress of his early belief 

 in the possibilities of irrigation. When he suggested to 

 his associates east of the Mississippi that they take hold 

 of the Union Pacific they regarded him as being almost 

 out of his senses and asked what he was going to do 

 with the great desert to be traversed. 



"I told them of the possibility of irrigation," said 

 Harriman, "but they replied that it would come in 

 another generation, not in ours. I had to go it alone 

 and perhaps some of them now regret that I did not 

 use more force and persuasion to have them go along 

 with me." 



Harriman then said that his organizations con- 

 trolled much timber land in Oregon, but that it was not 

 being sold or the timber cut, but is being saved for fu- 

 ture generations." 



Harriman referred to the work done in improving 

 the Union Pacific and said it was necessary to secure 

 control of the Central Pacific and improve it likewise, 

 otherwise traffic would be choked up at Ogden. He 

 closed by saying he hoped the people of the west would 

 not consider his organization selfish, and added that 

 everything possible was being done to develop the west. 

 . After Harriman resumed his seat Gov. Chamber- 

 lain, referring to the Oregon forest lands and their 

 preservation, said the people wanted something done for 

 the present generation, and not for the future, adding.: 



"I do not want to get into a discussion with Mr. 

 Harriman. but I would like to know how many acres of 

 the original grant have been sold by the railroad at a 

 price in excess of that fixed by the grant. I do not 

 think companies should be permitted to hold such large 

 grants. I would like to see Mr. Harriman build into 

 Oregon, and invite him to do so." 



Mr. Harriman, replying, said there was little in- 

 ducement to build into a country which was so thinly 

 populated. He referred to Oregon as a very fine state, 

 but called attention to the fact that shoveling of snow 

 would be required for several months out of the year. 



He, however, promised that when times became 

 better and the credit of local organizations was re- 

 established, he would build a road into Oregon, whether 

 it paid or not. 



The addresses of Wednesday included one by Dr. 

 Elwood Mead, who spoke on "Some Things Needed to 

 Secure the Highest Development of the Arid Region." 



Prof. E. J. Wickson of the Agricultural Depart- 

 ment, University of California, read the paper of A. C. 

 True, director of Experimental Stations, Department 

 of Agriculture, who could not be present. The subject 

 of the paper was, "Irrigation and Drainage Investiga- 

 tions." 



W. A. Ward, director of the Rice Growers' Associa- 

 tion of Beaumont, Tex., had as his subject "Rice Irri- 

 gation." 



Robert D. Manson, a Chicago banker, spoke on 

 "Financing Irrigation Enterprises." 



Governor Kibbey of Arizona was heard at the aft- 

 ernoon session on "Water Users' Associations." 



W. K. McAllister, general agent of the Southern 

 Pacific Railway, spoke on "The Settlement of Irrigated 

 Lands," saying: 



"The question of settlement of our irrigated lands 

 which have been reclaimed through the efforts of the 

 Reclamation Bureau and by private enterprise should 

 receive an animated and thorough discussion, for it is 

 one of the crying needs of this western country that we 

 not only reclaim its arid wastes, but that we people 

 them with those elements of foreign birth which go to 

 make up the sturdy, upright, cosmopolitan character 

 of the average American citizen. There is just as much 

 need of the settler as there is of the reclaimed land 

 itself, and one of the important questions for this con- 

 gress to decide is how these lands shall be settled with a 

 desirable class. The land is there but the people are 

 elsewhere. Our reclaimed wastes and the thousands of 

 the better classes of Europeans should be brought to- 

 gether by some systematized plan. 



"Over 1,000,000 immigrants arrived from Europe 

 during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1906, and there 

 seems to be no indication of a decrease. This immigra- 

 tion is harmful only when the immigrants are allowed 

 to remain in the congested cities of the East. 



"It is estimated that the United States is short 500,000 

 common laborers and this shortage' is a menace to the 

 prosperity of our manufacturing industries, which de- 

 pend upon the common labor of the country for their 

 raw material. 



"Another feature of this problem is the loss to the 

 middle west by immigration to Canada. It is stated 

 that emigration from the United States to Canada in 

 1896 was 49; in 1897, 712; in 1898, 919, and in 1906, 

 100,000. Thirty thousand have gone from Iowa in the 

 last year or two and two carloads of emigrants from 

 Colorado left Denver in August and September, 1906, 

 for western Canada. The situation has become so alarm- 

 ing that senators from Wyoming, Idaho, Kansas, Cali- 

 fornia and from other western states have begun an at- 

 tack upon our homestead laws, hoping to stop the ex- 

 odus from those states to Canada. But it is not the 

 homestead laws that are responsible for this remarkable 

 trekking to the Canadian Northwest. It is their supe- 

 rior system of colonization that is drawing from the 

 United States and not because their lands are more 

 productive or their laws more liberal and just. 



"We should study the plans in operation by the 

 Canadian government very carefully for the fact that 

 150,000 Americans have left the middle west to settle 

 in the Canadian Northwest during the last few years 

 proves beyond a doubt that our own system of coloni- 

 zation is far inferior to the Canadian system." 



L. L. Dennett of Modesto, Cal., spoke on "Munici- 

 pal Irrigation Systems." 



Prof. Samuel Fortier delivered an able paper on 

 "The Greatest Need of Arid America." His main con- 

 tention was the settlement of irrigated lands. He said 

 that the irrigation projects amounted to little without 

 the strong arm. sound judgment and tireless energy of 

 the farmers. He stated that 5,000,000 acres of land 

 were to be opened for homes after irrigation projects 

 were completed and every effort should be made to en- 

 courage settlement. 



Fred L. Reeding of the Department of Agriculture 

 spoke of the "Relation of Irrigation to Dry Farming." 



On this day also the committee on resolutions 

 "squelched" the Imperial valley delegation's resolution, 



