THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



207 



CALLS 'PRIOR LEVELING' KEY TO SUCCESS 



By E. P. Osgood 

 Agricultural Engineer 



TrucKee-Carson Project, Fallen, Nev. 



THERE is just one great, outstanding fault in Fed- 

 eral Reclamation of the arid lands today. 



It is the under-financing of the settlers, who are 

 trying to develop farms and homes on the vast proj- 

 ects which the government has built in the west. 



Irrigation farming is a business that under ordi- 

 nary conditions will return twenty-five per cent on the 

 investment. 



The main works of the Federal projects the 

 dams, the controlling works, the canals have been 

 well and capably constructed. 



Soil and climate of these projects, when combined 

 with the life-giving irrigating water, present most 

 ideal conditions for farming. 



The government has builded well so far as it has 

 gone, but it has not gone far enough. 



It has permitted settlers to come with their fam- 

 ilies on to wholly untamed and uncleared land, ex- 

 pecting to make a living almost from the day of their 

 arrival. 



It has invited and permitted men to tackle a job 

 with $1,000 capital, which cannot be financed nor han- 

 dled with much less than $5,000. 



As a result, a grave situation confronts reclama- 

 tion progress. No general improvement for years to 

 come can be anticipated so long as the settler must 

 come in underfinanced. Under such a condition, the 

 aim of the Reclamation Act is being defeated. 



What is the remedy? 



PRIOR LEVELING of the land ! 



We have heard too much about aid for the Water 

 Users and it is time we realized that some other aid 

 is needed and that it is aid of the projects themselves. 

 The Water User has done far more than his share 

 in the battle with the desert and has gone to extremes 

 of starving himself, his children and his stock and has 

 sold off his equipment and stock in the effort to meet 

 payments and still stay by the game. He has worked 

 long hours and been a drudge animal in refusing to 

 give up and he has found a one-sided contract. The 

 offering made by the project is not feasible, so let it 

 get aid for itself that it may come to the settler with a 

 business proposition ; let it present its lands leveled 

 and then it can come to the settler offering oppor- 

 tunity instead of disasters. 



To reclaim the land on the Federal projects, it is 

 costing about $60 per acre to construct necessary 

 reservoirs, canals and drain ditches. It is costing 

 $60 and more to further reclaim by leveling, ditching 

 and creation of farms, or a total of $100 to $125 per 

 acre to convert waste to wealth. 



An 80-acre unit is, on any but old, well estab- 

 lished, intensified projects with certain markets estab- 

 lished for its crops, necessary to support a family 

 meeting water payments and trying to bring up chil- 

 dren to become rugged valuable citizens of our coun- 

 try. This 80-acre unit will represent when developed 

 from $8,000 to $10,000 of actual cost investment. In 

 other words $10,000 is going to be used to develop 

 such a farm and the settler comes in, if very lucky, 



mind you, with about $1,000. He does not need $10,- 

 000 or $6,000 to start on but I say he positively does 

 need $3,000 to make even the slightest attempt, if he 

 is to really help himself, or the project. Sixty dollars 

 cash in your pocket to buil?l reservoir and canal as 

 against $12.50 cash per acre to tackle a $125 per acre 

 job that calls for practically $60 cash on the spot as 

 the "ante" to get into the game is the comparison 

 between the engineers' and the settlers' jobs. 



Are we going to allow green, inexperienced of 

 the world, agriculturally uneducated land seekers and 

 home builders to continue to swarm over million dol- 

 lar projects and attempt to conquer their $125 per acre 

 task with only $12.50 per acre in their pockets? 



1 say it is time we came to the aid of our Fed- 

 eral Reclamation Projects and finished them to the 

 point that is necessary to give them an opportunity to 

 show their worth to the settler, and saved them from 

 the utterly unmerited opprobrium that they are now 

 falling into because of being offered in their present 

 condition as opportunities for frugal, honest, hard- 

 working home seekers. No fairer opportunity lies be- 

 fore us than can be found in these projects, for science 

 and nature are one there, but let us be sure opportun- 

 ity is there. "Twenty-five per cent net profit oppor- 

 tunity," and even better lies hidden away in them but 

 woe betide him who seeks to pick the lock to it with 

 copper pennies. 



The criticism will come up that theory or no, the 

 settler has been "proving up," even though starting 

 with little capital. He has done anything to prove up, 

 hoping to get some money that will let him do "some- 

 thing." Go look the project over and see the hope- 

 less leveling that has too often been the basis of 

 "proving up" and then don't wonder at inadequate 

 returns; such leveling is all over our projects and 

 land so leveled has a special name "hogged in," 

 they call it. 



Prof. Fortier, Chief of the Experiment Stations, 

 has commented again and again on the fact that re- 

 turns from irrigated land are little better than from 

 rain land; that the average alfalfa yield for southern 

 Idaho is but 3.25 tons per acre per year where the 

 experiment stations have shown yields of 6 to 10 tons. 

 Now go back and look at land "hogged in" by your 

 $12.50 per acre capitalists and don't wonder any more 

 why returns are so small. Pour $100 of real gold 

 investment into the ground, do the job right and you 

 will then see that the arid lands, irrigated, are the 

 store houses of untold wealth. 



Let Congress amend the Reclamation Act, so as 

 to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to have lands 

 on the projects leveled, and also seeded if necessary, 

 prior to acceptance of water applications, or to have 

 the same done on such lands as have already applied 

 for water, if requested by the Water User. Let the 

 entire cost of such work become a part of the con- 

 struction charges and be repaid in the same manner. 

 Do this and you will give the projects a chance, and 

 incidentally, the settler. 



Now let us see what would happen, with such an 

 amendment in force. Let us compare the pos'sibilities 

 (Continued nn Page 217.) 



