THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



329 



were established as land districts, with authority to 

 issue debentures and extend credit to settlers 

 through a management similar to that of the Water 

 Users' Associations and under the supervision of the 

 Government, they would become pure landschafts ; 

 and they would be able to find capital on easy terms 

 for other purposes than for the payment of construc- 

 tion charges. The arrangement, moreover, would 

 weld the settlers in each project into a unity, arouse 

 in them an intenser feeling of mutual responsibility, 

 and create a solidarity of interests. With its finan- 

 cial duties thus eliminated, the Reclamation Serv- 

 ice would be more efficient, because then it would 

 assume its proper role as a body of expert engineers 

 and contractors, with the Government acting as an 

 impartial umpire to assure equal justice to all. 



So the first trouble with the Reclamation Act 

 and amendments is, as I understand it, that they 

 did not provide for an adequate supply of long-term 

 capital in advance of the projects which the Service 

 has undertaken. As a result the Secretary of the 

 Interior tells you that new or secondary projects 

 cannot be considered, while there is danger that 

 work on the projects under way may have to be 

 discontinued. This trouble is purely financial. A 

 remedy lies in the issue of debentures and the crea- 

 tion of a sinking fund out of the receipts from set- 

 tlers for the payment of these debentures. This 

 would open for the Service a dependable source of 

 funds and also convert the financial operations from 

 the unsatisfactory short term into the much needed 

 long term. 



In this way the Government could mobilize its 

 entire investment and make it a revolving fund for 

 carrying on and enlarging its work. There is no 

 reason why the Government should not realize on 

 the credit available from this investment. Indeed, 

 good business and financial practice dictates the con- 

 stant re-use of the $100,000,000 that will soon be 

 tied up, instead of letting it lie idle without drawing 

 interest, as is now the case. It would be to the 

 advantage of the Government to keep all this money 

 active, except a fair margin set aside for safety. This 

 it could do by issuing bonds or debentures against 

 its investment. The future of the arid and semi-arid 

 regions rests upon irrigation enterprises most of 

 which are on the public domain and too large to be 

 undertaken by private individuals. Whatever be 

 the method of finance adopted, progress on this 

 splendid and highly important work should not be 

 left to hazard or impeded by lack of funds. 



The landschaft principle is so old and thor- 

 oughly tested that it is well worth a trial. Its prac- 

 tice on the irrigation projects (where it could be 

 easily introduced) would set an excellent example 

 for farmers in all other parts of the country. 



Mutual self-help, or co-operation, is the next 

 greatest necessity of the occupants of the irrigation 

 projects. The failure to recognize this fact is, in my 

 opinion, another shortcoming of the Reclamation 

 Act. Water Users' Associations were organized and 

 are managed to protect the mutual interests of the 

 settlers, and under the 1914 law they may be consti- 

 tuted fiscal agents to collect the charges due to the 

 United States. It is regrettable that the Govern- 

 ment did not take them more largely into its con- 



fidence from the start and that they have not more 

 fully appreciated and utilized their influence to or- 

 ganize the farmers co-operatively in all their in- 

 dustrial, commercial, and financial affairs relating 

 to agriculture. 



Rural co-operation, in order to attain its best 

 results, must consist of a system of inter-related 

 associations based on local co-operative banks. The 

 chief purpose of a rural co-operative bank is not to 

 make individual loans to members, but to organize 

 and strengthen their purchasing and selling power. 

 It is one of the basic units for creating and support- 

 ing a system through which collective resources may 

 be utilized to enable members to buy supplies and 

 sell their products at the best prices. This, of 

 course, saves so much money that members even- 

 tually have a surplus to lend to one another, but the 

 common good must always be the main object, be- 

 cause only through that can the spirit of co-opera- 

 tion be preserved and the individual good of mem- 

 bers brought about. 



The Water Users' Associations are in a posi- 

 tion to take a leading part in introducing and sys- 

 tematizing co-operative organization based on co- 

 operative credit, and it is to be hoped that they will 

 give more attention to this important matter. 



The settlers on the projects would be all-suffi- 

 cient in themselves if only they were thoroughly 

 organized in such a way that they could utilize the 

 wealth they create for financing their own business. 

 The irrigation projects are distinctively agricultural. 

 The ease with which co-operation could be intro- 

 duced on them, and the great good it would do, call 

 aloud for continued and persistent agitation for it, 

 until the farmers on each project are completely 

 organized into a co-operative system for taking care 

 of their commercial, industrial, and financial neces- 

 sities and affairs. 



If this were done ; and furthermore, if the mort- 

 gages were converted into long term through land- 

 schafts, and the Reclamation Service improved 

 through a reform of financial methods, I predict that 

 the irrigator farmers would have peace, plenty and 

 prosperity, and that they would become the advance 

 guard of a modernized agriculture that would 

 awaken better ideas of life and action among farmers 

 throughout the United States. 



REMOVE THE RUBBISH 



In the war against farm and garden pests a fall 

 clean-up is a good means of attack. Fall plowing is 

 generally recognized as a good method for the pre- 

 vention of insect injury, but rubbish left in piles 

 along fences, or in fence corners, or in the orchard, 

 or kitchen garden, make the best kind of winter 

 quarters for insect pests in various stages. Trash 

 of this kind should be cleared away, preferably by 

 burning, as such burning destroys any insects among 

 the rubbish. 



Every Federal water user should read The Irrigrtion Age. 

 It is fighting for their righi. If your neighbor do not take the 

 Age, tell them about it, 



