734 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



crops, regular yields and increased exporting power, the 

 older farming lands of the country will have to be 

 irrigated. 



Irrigation is too commonly thought of as a species of 

 fancy farming needed only in the strictly arid regions of 

 the Far West. This mistake has cost grain growers a 

 great deal of money. An artificial water supply is as much 

 needed in our grain states as anywhere else. While it is 

 important in the fruit orchards, alfalfa fields and truck 

 farms of the Far West, it is a vital requirement on the 

 grain and dairy farms of the Mississippi Valley. 



It frequently has been pointed out in these columns 

 and is a fact easily demonstrated that scientific farming 

 will yield twice the ordinary profits. Irrigation is the first 

 essential in improving agricultural methods and placing a 

 farm on a modern basis. This statement will be accepted 

 without question wherever irrigation has been tried, but 

 thousands of farmers in the Mississippi Valley do not 

 seem able to grasp the fact that it applies to themselves. 

 Study and observation covering a quarter of a century 

 convince IRRIGATION AGE that the artificial water system is 

 the great need of farming interests everywhere. Without 

 the adoption of this method American agriculture cannot 

 reach the high level at which representative land own- 

 ers aim. 



position. The common sense view of the case in ques- 

 tion is that the man who received the check for his team 

 was the one cheated. The funds were in the bank when 

 the check was made, but the maker hurried home, drew 

 his cash and fled. The seller of the team was not in fact 

 paid, but he took a check which proved to be worthless 

 and by indorsing it got the amount from an innocent third 

 party. The man who drew the check worked a confidence 

 game, knowing that the paper would not in the ordinary 

 course of business get to Polo for collection until he had 

 time to return home and draw out all his funds. The ap- 

 pellate court holds, however, that the bank must lose be- 

 cause it did not rush the check through for collection. 



.We have too much legislation and too many laws, 

 but nevertheless there is urgent need of some common 

 sense amendments to some of the existing statutes. 



Western farmers are pestered with 

 Western petty swindles of all kinds and the 



Farmers fraudulent bank check is the worst evil 



Lose by of the lot. As this kind of crime is in- 



Bad Checks. creasing people who live some distance 



from a bank should adopt a rule that 

 they will not accept checks unless they know beyond a 

 shadow of doubt that they are good. 



Persons living some miles from a bank will frequently 

 carry a check for a week or a month before presenting it 

 for payment. This is a dangerous custom, as it gives the 

 drawer time to take his money out of the bank and dis- 

 appear. The law does not protect a person who does not 

 get his checks cashed promptly. The courts of Illinois 

 make many absurd rulings on this point, even against the 

 bankers themselves, as witness the case at Chadwick 

 wherein the bank loses $550 because it was a day or two 

 later in collecting the check than the court thought it 

 ought to have been. A resident of Polo gave a check on 

 one of his home banks to a farmer residing near Chad- 

 wick. The latter indorsed the paper and secured the cash 

 for it from the First National Bank of Chadwick, the bank 

 officials knowing the farmer and supposing him to be re- 

 liable and responsible. Such transactions are as common 

 as eating three meals a day. The deal was for a span of 

 horses and the bank had no interest in the matter. The 

 check was cashed as an accommodation by an innocent 

 party. Almost any citizen of Chadwick having that 

 amount of money at hand would have been willing to 

 cash the check just as the bank did. 



Before the check reached the Polo bank the drawer 

 had taken all of his money out and disappeared. The 

 farmer was asked to make good the amount which the 

 bank at Chadwick had paid to him, but refused to do so. 

 In the suit that followed it was shown that the check 

 would have been honored at Polo had it reached the 

 bank there on the day after it was drawn, but as it did 

 not arrive for collection for three days, the Chadwick 

 bank was held to be guilty of negligence and is compelled 

 tc bear the loss. 



Under this legal absurdity no person is safe from im- 



Duty of 

 Capitalists 

 Toward 

 Irrigation. 



American capitalists ought to take a 

 much more personal and direct interest 

 in irrigation and other subjects pertain- 

 ing to agriculture than they have been 

 doing. They all tell the farmer that he 

 needs to raise larger crops on his pres- 

 ent acreage, not only for his own profit but for the good 

 of the nation's export trade. Larger crops can come only 

 through better methods of farming, and if the financial 

 men are in earnest they must help in a practical way to 

 put agriculture on a business basis. This means irrigation, 

 for there is nothing else that will insure heavier crops 

 year after ye.ar. 



It can be claimed in truth that there never has been 

 a time when bankers and other men of means have given 

 as much attention to farming matters as they are doing 

 at present, and yet there is an evident need of more 

 capital in land development. It has come about that the 

 importance of successful agriculture as related to other 

 commercial affairs is better understood than ever before. 

 Capitalists today realize that there can be no real or last- 

 ing prosperity in this country unless the farmer is pros- 

 perous. 



In this new understanding of the proper relationship 

 of all other business to agriculture there is hope for the 

 tarmer and hope for the continued progress of this nation. 

 Farming must be raised to a better standard if we expect 

 to remain an exporting country. With our land nearly 

 all occupied we have barely raised wheat enough the past 

 season to supply our own needs. Another drouth or two 

 would make us importers of breadstuffs. Unless we can 

 draw largely on Europe one year after another on export 

 account our national prosperity must begin to dwindle. 



While agriculture as a whole is prospering, it is still 

 far from resting on a business or scientific basis. In 

 thousands of cases capital is needed and organized effort 

 is needed to enable individuals and even townships and 

 whole counties to modernize farm methods. This is a 

 thing that must be accomplished to make farming attract- 

 ive to progressive young people. The greatest need of 

 the commercial world today is the full employment of our 

 agricultural lands. Intelligent men must take up the prob- 

 lem and give to it the attention that its importance de- 

 mands. We require intensive, diversified farming, on 

 business principles, with waste and slovenly or old-fash- 

 ioned methods cut out. Here is a golden opportunity for 

 capitalists with idle money. There are thousands of far- 

 mers who need help in changing over to a new system 



