THE IEKIGATION AGE. 



11 



CONSERVATION AND CO-OPERATION 

 What Oregon and the Federal Government Are 

 Doing A New Policy of Joint Action By Ed- 

 ward F. Bohm, Author of "The Carey Act 

 Manual" and "Papers on Irrigation Finance." 



Of the far western states, Oregon is, probably, in its 

 entirety, the least traveled and the least known to the 

 outside world. Of its eastern half, by far the greater part, 

 in area approximating the state of Ohio, is still destitute 

 of railroad facilities. 



Into the western border of this domain there have, 

 only recently, been extended branches of the Hill and 

 Harriman systems, which, leaving the main lines on the 

 Columbia river, proceed some 150 miles south to the towns 

 of Deschutes and Bend, following the course of the Des- 

 chutes river and affording an outlet for the rich agri- 

 cultural country of the "Deschutes basin," to whose partial 

 development under irrigation these towns owe their pres- 

 ent upbuilding. It is this region, lying just east of the 

 Cascade range, which has been selected by state and 

 national authorities as the theatre of the "co-operative 

 investigation" of irrigation and power possibilities by 

 virtue of an agreement recently entered into, and in which 

 it is sought to apply the water of the Deschutes river and 

 tributaries, draining the eastern slopes of the Cascadss, to 

 the highest measure of usefulness. Still farther to the east 

 of this remarkable district lies the vast area of open range 

 country the interior "hinterland" much-vaunted in 

 "booster" literature as the "Nation's Last West," still to be 

 traversed, if at all, by wagon or in the saddle and inter- 

 esting in many ways, but outside the scope of this discus- 

 sion. 



The fact of Oregon's isolation has led, in the past, to 

 a hazy condition of mind as to the state's natural re- 

 sources. It has been known, for a long time and in a broad 

 way, that vast possibilities of usefulness lay dormant in 

 stream and forest, but as to the real extent and probable 

 value of these assets no definite determination had been 

 ' made until recently. The co-operative investigations con- 

 ducted by the state and the United States Geological Sur- 

 vey during a number of years past have now fixed beyond 

 all doubt the fact of the existence of irrigation and power 

 possibilities which in their magnitude transcend anything 

 heretofore ascertained as to still latent opportunities upon 

 the public domain truly a worthy field for the develop- 

 ment of the new twin theory of conservation and co- 

 operation. The result of the investigations of the state's 

 timber resources conducted by the Conservation Commis- 

 sion are of an equally imposing character, the forested 

 area being rated at twenty-five million acres, largely under 

 national control and in private ownership, the timber alone 

 being valued at $680,000,000. 



"Conservation" has come to be regarded as a well- 

 meaning but much-abused term with its issues pretty well 

 defined and understood. A discussion of the varying argu- 

 ments pro and con cannot be entertained in an article such 

 as this, devoted to a bare consideration of facts, but the 

 attitude towards the subject, as evidenced in Oregon by 

 recent legislative enactments, and by the recommendation 

 of its Conservation Commission and Engineering Office, 

 deserves emphatic notice as expressing the latest and most 

 advanced thought and, in that sense, serving as powerful 

 examples of what the term can .be made to embrace. 

 "Co-operation," however, in its present application, is a 

 new term, charged with the expression a new ideal of 

 thought and effort. In the last analysis, the working out 

 of broad economic questions can be seen reflected in the 

 enactment of these recent measures for "conservation and 

 development of public resources" by the state which, 

 fittingly enough, was among the pioneers of the initiative 

 and referendum, and which, in a higher sense, has seen fit 

 at the same time to go even further to the extent of 

 recognition of an ethical principle a moral obligation. 

 Reference is intended herein to the action of the Legis- 

 lature in appropriating $450,000 of state funds for the com- 

 pletion of the defunct Columbia Southern project "to save 

 the good name of the state" and for the rescue of numer- 

 ous settlers who had been led, upon the assumed honor ot 

 the state and by faith in its control, in this case im- 



perfectly exercised, to enter lands under this project, and 

 who, through its failure, were deprived of the anticipated 

 supply of water. To make the full meaning of this 

 measure clear it must be set forth that the state, by opera- 

 tion of its own laws, had distinctly disclaimed, in advance, 

 all responsibility for possible failure of its contracting 

 agents and that the settlers were deemed to be without 

 legal recourse in this direction. Here are the recom- 

 mendations submitted to the Legislature at its last session, 

 by the Conservation Commission not all of them enacted 

 into law, viz.: State appropriation for forest perpetuation 

 and protection; changes in taxation system to encourage 

 private owners to hold their cut-over timber lands for a 

 second crop; the acquisition of a state forest through ex- 

 change of school sections for solid tracts of timber lands; 

 purchase by the state of cut-over and burned-over lands 

 for reforestation purposes, and state financial assistance to 

 settlers upon cut-over lands. This is certainly a far cry 

 from the operations of the old "Timber and Stone Act" 

 and a good measure of recognition of present-day and fu- 

 ture needs. 



In all the forested areas of the West the disposition 

 of these cut-over lands presents one of the most serious 

 problems of the times on account of the relatively high 

 cost of stump clearing. To assist in reclaiming these large 

 areas of otherwise fertile lands, thus burdened, a consti- 

 tutional amendment authorizing the issuance of state 

 bonds for "development of cut-over lands" is to be sub- 

 mitted to popular vote in November, 1914. The other 

 recommendations offered have 'been deferred for future 

 consideration. 



To the student of western conditions the figures just 

 published by John H. Lewis, State Engineer, bearing upon 

 the water resources of the state, appear almost beyond 

 belief, but upon the testimony of so highly recognized an 

 authority they are bound to be accepted at their face. 

 This competent and active official has been, in large meas- 

 ure, responsible both for the adoption of the advanced 

 system of water administration now in force (The ''Ore- 

 gon system") and for the numerous conservation meas- 

 ures placed upon the statute books. A retrospective glance 

 over the Oregon water situation will here prove of value. 

 Prior to the year 1909 the state, in common with some of 

 the other "arid-land" commonwealths, was almost innocent 

 of control over its water resources. The doctrines of 

 "riparian rights" and of "appropriation and beneficial use" 

 held sway side by side with no state machinery for either 

 definition or control of such "rights." Logically the cha- 

 otic condition resulting proved a serious impediment to 

 bona-fide development and benefited most largely the 

 speculative "water hog." Years of agitation culminated, 

 finally, in the adoption in 1909 of the present famous 

 code, which in its essentials places the control of the 

 state's waters in the hands of an administrative board, with 

 the state engineer at its head. The proposed utilization 

 of these waters, up to that time, had been confined to a 

 very slight use of water powers in a large way to the 

 irrigation of two tracts (Umatilla and Klamath projects) 

 by the Federal government and to several Carey Act 

 ventures, only one of which, the Central Oregon project, 

 in the Deschutes Basin, having so far been completed. 

 A large area of government lands under this last-named, 

 and, because of its final success, unique, irrigation project, 

 has only recently been made accessible to entry by the 

 completion of the new railroad lines. The fate of the 

 Columbia Southern project and its proposed redemption 

 by the state have already been referred to. 



It is now conservatively estimated that the unused, 

 and unappropriated waters of the state are sufficient for 

 the irrigation of two million acres of land, at a cost of 

 from forty to sixty dollars per acre and that they are 

 capable of producing, coincidently with this irrigation, 

 3,300,000 horsepower of energy. This great national asset 

 in its scope of ultimate usefulness is almost beyond the 

 grasp of human thought. The development of only a 

 fraction of this cheap power whether by private capital 

 or by the state should make possible enormously pro- 

 ductive manufacturing industries suitable to the conditions 

 of the Pacific slope and render available the blessings of 

 cheap electricity for every home, however humble. The 

 influx of hundreds of thousands of people, deriving suste- 

 nance from these new-born industries, will create a prolific 

 market for the product of forest and farm. The irrigation 

 of two million acres, much of it free government land, will 



