302 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



'U. S. HAS DRAINED PROJECT OF ITS CAPITAL' 



By O. E. FARNHAM 

 OF NEWELL. S. D. 



Secretary of the National Federation of Water Users' Association 



T 



'HE I idle Fourche Wa- 

 ter I'sers' association 

 suit, which may settle 

 many important points in 

 the reclamation law and 

 the regulations promul- 

 gated under it by the 

 Reclamation Service, is 

 still awaiting decision by 

 the circuit court of ap- 

 peals. The arguments 

 were presented on June 2. 

 Our people are receiv- 

 ing water for their crops 

 under the injunctional 

 orders issued a year ago 

 and are certainly improv- 

 ing the opportunity to get in shape to meet such 

 payments as may have to be made in the future 

 to protect their homes. We have a dairying and 

 stockfeeding proposition almost exclusively and it 

 takes capital to handle it and stock our farms. 



The Government has been draining the project 

 of its capital during the past five or six years, until 



O. E. Farnham 



most of the livestock has been sold at forced sales 

 and the balance heavily mortgaged to meet water 

 payments. We can not operate the project under 

 such conditions and the farmers must necessarily 

 be permitted to recuperate before any payments 

 can be expected. 



So'me Congressmen at Washington seem to lose 

 sight of the fact that the Government has millions 

 invested in these projects that can never be realized 

 on unless it permits the accumulation of sufficient 

 capital and livestock in these communities with 

 which to stock up these farms and develop them 

 to a high state of production. Most of the lands 

 to be reclaimed are Government lands, otherwise 

 worthless, and the Government must handle these 

 lands as private capital has in the past developed 

 large areas of arid and semi-arid lands in the West. 



Time and credit have been extended the people 

 who would take hold of these lands and develop 

 them. In some cases the promoters have developed 

 the lands themselves to a high state of productivity 

 and then sold them on the installment plan, the 

 produce from the lands paying the purchase price. 

 The matter of extending time and credit to these 

 settlers is an entirely different proposition from 

 loaning money to the Eastern farmer, as the settlers 

 on these projects are developing what is considered 

 as worthless Government land. 



USE YOUR WATER USERS' ASSOCIATION 



THE Water Users' Association on the Shoshone 

 project in Wyoming is working hard to solve 

 the seeped land problem, with which many of the 

 settlers must cope. A committee, consisting of a 

 representative of the Reclamation Service, a repre- 

 sentative of the Water Users, and a disinterested 

 non-resident will examine the seeped areas in the 

 project during this month. 



In order to make this examination thorough 

 and fruitful of results, the association has been col- 

 lecting data from the settlers concerning the seeped 

 land. The seepage and drainage problem concerns 

 the whole project, yet some of the Water Users have 

 shown an inclination to "go it alone." To these 

 The Tribune, of Powell, Wyo., has something to 

 say which not only the Water Users of the Sho- 

 shone project should take to heart, but about which 

 every other Federal Water User should also think. 

 It concerns the advantages of acting through the 

 Water Users' Association in dealing with the gov- 

 ernment. The editorial, in part, is as follows: 



"The opportunity to file with the directors of 

 the Water Users' Association one's own estimate 

 of his bogged land is too good a one to be lost. It 

 was for just such purposes as this that the Associa- 

 tion was formed ; that is, to serve, as the accredited 

 mouthpiece of the settlers taken collectively. Re- 

 quests and complaints from a single person are 

 often ineffectual not, perhaps, on account of a dis- 



inclination on the part of the authorities to attend 

 to such cases, but because in the press of work of 

 the sort for which the Reclamation Service was in- 

 stituted, the personal interests of the individual are 

 often temporarily sidetracked and maybe forgotten 

 in the course of time. 



"No doubt many of the settlers dislike what 

 smacks of too much 'red tape' ; they prefer to do 

 their own talking to disburden their minds of their 

 opinions of what seems to them a personal wrong, 

 but which is most probably merely an incident in 

 the day's work of the Reclamation Service. With 

 all due respect to them, we would say that sort of 

 thing does not pay. The proper thing is to write 

 or go to the secretary or some other official of the 

 Water Users and state your case, which is added to 

 other similar cases and the whole tabulated and 

 put into business-like shape so as to be easily and 

 quickly understood by the official to whom it is pre- 

 sented. In this way you are pretty sure of a prompt 

 consideration of your case. That is one point. 

 Another is the fact that several complaints together 

 have an added weight ; they mutually sustain each 

 other. 



"Pace off your seeped areas and send in your 

 estimate of them. Thus the secretary will have 

 something to guide him in representations to the 

 proper officials. The Association will be all the 

 stronger the more it is used." 



