Year- 



THE IRRIGATION AGE 



VOL. XXX 



CHICAGO, APRIL,, 1915. 



No. 6 



THE IRRIGATION AGE 



With which is Merged 



The National Land and Irrigation Journal 



MODERN IRRIGATION THE DRAINAGE JOURNAL 



THE IRRIGATION ERA MID-WEST 



ARID AMERICA THE FARM HERALD 



THE WATE* USERS' BULLETIN THE IRRIGATOR 



D. H. ANDERSON 



PUBLISHER, 



Published Monthly at 30 No. Dearborn Street, 

 CHICAGO 



Entered as second-class matter October 3, 1897, at the Postoffice 

 at Chicago, 111., under Act of March S, 1879. 



D. H. ANDERSON, Editor 



ANNOUNCEMENT. 



The "Primer of Hydraulics" is now ready; Price $2.00. 

 If ordered in connection with subscription $2.00. 



SUBSCRIPTION PRICE 

 To United States Subscribers, Postage Paid, . . . $1-00 



To Canada and Mexico. l.SO 



All Other Foreign Countrie . 1.60 



In forwarding remittances please do not send checks on local 

 banks. Send either postoffice or express money order or Chicago or 

 New York draft. 



Official organ Federation of Tree Growing Gubs of 

 America. D. H. Anderson, Secretary. 



The Executive Committee of the National Federation 

 of Water Users' Associations has taken action whereby 

 THE IRRIGATION AGE is created the official organ of this 

 vast organization, representing 1,000,000 persons on the 

 government irrigation projects. 



Interesting to Advertisers 



[t may interest advertisers to know that The Irrigation Age 

 is the only publication in the world having an actual paid in 

 advance circulation among individual irrigators and large 

 irrigation corporations. It is read regularly by all inter- 

 ested in this subject and has readers in all parts of the 

 world. The Irrigation Age is 30 years old and is the 

 pioneer publication of its class in the world. 



It looks as if the hour had come 

 Now Is the to straighten out affairs in the 



Time for the Reclamation Service. The water 



Settlers to Make users seem to have decided to 

 Their Case take the project revaluations 



seriously, and make the forty dol- 

 lars per day or more costs to each project pay legiti- 

 mate returns. The returns, which the settlers ask, 

 are fulfillment of their solemn contracts with the 

 United States government and the assessment of 

 charges for only those works which are of actual 

 benefit and which represent legitimate expenditures. 



It required several conferences with Will R. 

 King, chief counsel of the Reclamation Service, to 

 induce that eminent lawyer to agree that the set- 

 tlers should be permitted to "plead" their water 

 contracts with the government as part of the rec- 

 ords of the revaluation hearings. Good ! This is 

 the first foundation stone in the case, which the set- 

 tlers must build up if the final verdict of Secretary 

 Lane's supreme court on revaluations or Congress, 

 where, no doubt, the issue must go for ultimate set- 

 tlement, is to be favorable to the water users. 



E^very water user, as THE IRRIGATION AGE has 

 urged since Secretary Lane first suggested the re- 

 valuation idea, should make it his personal busi- 

 ness to see that the revaluation hearings are thor- 

 ough and not merely a farce in accounting. Even 



though a revaluation board may look lopsided and 

 leaning in favor toward the Reclamation Service, 

 make yourself heard. If a settler knows of the ex- 

 penditure of one dollar upon unnecessary or in- 

 competent work, or of any wrong-doing, foolishness 

 or blue sky engineering, he should insist upon plac- 

 ing- this information before the revaluation board. 

 This is no time to be a shrinking violet. 



Officers of the Lower Yellowstone project fig- 

 ure that the sustaining of their present water right 

 contracts will be worth at least $1,500,000 to the 

 settlers. 



On another project a $2,000,000 diversion canal 

 has proven practically valueless because there is 

 little or no water to run through it during the irri- 

 gating season, and the Reclamation Service has 

 been forced to spend $2,000,000 more to build a 

 storage dam, not figured on in the original project 

 estimates. Should the settlers be forced to pay 

 $4,000,000 for something from which they are ob- 

 taining only $2.000,000 worth of benefit? 



There are similar monuments of asininity on 

 other projects. Each one of these, large or small, 

 should be marked in glaring letters and brought 

 into the full light of day. The revaluation boards 

 should be forced to sift such matters to the bottom 

 and learn just how much, if any, value these pieces 

 <>t work may have for the water users. 



