22 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



amortised payments for the money borrowed to 

 improve and equip their farms. 



So long as the fertile lands of the middle west 

 or the easily watered lands of the arid west were 

 to be had under the Homestead act, there was no 

 need for state aid, but about the beginning of this 

 century the fertile lands were absorbed and the irri- 

 gation of arid lands had become so costly and diffi- 

 cult as to place it beyond the reach of individual 

 capital or effort. This led to the passage of the 

 Reclamation act, and to enormous investments of 

 corporate capital in the construction of irrigation 

 works. The settler who was to create homes on 

 this land was not, however, dealt with as the party 

 to be benefited. His place in the scheme was to 

 repay the money expended. 



Neither the government Reclamation act nor 

 the plans of corporate enterprises made any pro- 

 vision for giving financial aid to the settler in ac- 

 quiring land; or in helping him prepare it for culti- 

 vation, or to protect him from exploitations by the 

 land speculator. The opinion has seemed to prevail 

 that if canals were built and the water made avail- 

 able, settlers should fight their battles unaided and 

 pay all the costs. Both the government and cor- 

 porate enterprises gave their whole attention and 

 invested all their money in building dams and reser- 

 voirs. The economic problems of the farmers who 

 were to repay this investment were practically ig- 

 nored. This gave to the land speculator a broad 

 and inviting field and full use was made of its 

 opportunities. 



It is to be regretted that this great investment 

 in irrigation works was not preceded by an economic 

 study to determine what methods would best de- 

 velop the lands these works were intended to serve. 

 Such a study would have shown that the same need 

 existed for money and skilled practical direction 

 in preparing land for irrigation as there was for 

 money and engineering skill to build canals. It 

 would have disclosed the great cost of transforming 

 arid lands into productive farms and would have, 

 at the outset, brought government aid to settlers 

 or warned those without capital to keep away. It 

 would, almost certainly, have prevented the exploi- 

 tation of settlers by speculators. There was, how- 

 ever, no such investigation. On the contrary, news- 

 papers and magazines were filled with glowing 

 accounts of the great opportunities for settlers which 

 government and private reclamation work were 

 opening up in the arid west. Their description of 

 the government's operations was misleading in that 

 it gave to the eager landseeker a belief that much 

 of this development was to be a donation and added 

 to the properly equipped homeseekers a great body 

 of immigrants who lacked capital and experience 

 and a correct understanding of the task they were 

 attempting. 



.The story of what followed, when written, will 

 be an interesting economic history. Probably, noth- 

 ing has ever surpassed the wide range of activities, 

 the fertility of imagination and the utter lack of any 

 sense of responsibility on the part of those who 

 sold land to these confident, credulous and inex- 

 perienced homeseekers. As the demand for land 

 increased, the price of wheat land was inflated from 

 $5 to $50 an acre, while fruit land was inflated from 



ten to twenty times its original cost. Land bought 

 for $20 an acre was subdivided and sold for $100 to 

 $250 an acre. One hundred and fifty thousand acres, 

 bought at an average price of $40 an acre, had its 

 price increased by subdivision to $75 and $250 an 

 acre. 



In time these land prices became purely specu- 

 lative; they had no relation to productive values. 

 It was not in any sense real development. Both 

 the state and the settler were being exploited. Noth- 

 ing worse for the enduring prosperity of this part 

 of the nation could have happened. 



These increasing prices brought with them a 

 staggering burden of interest. Land selling became 

 a more complicated and difficult operation. It re- 

 quired more imagination, more eloquence and per- 

 sonal magnetism to sell land at $200 an acre than 

 had been required at an earlier date to sell the same 

 land for $20 an acre. The successful land sales- 

 man became an indispensable factor. The cus- 

 tomary commission of 2 l / 2 to 5 per cent that prevails 

 where development is of a healthy character and 

 where values are legitimate, rose to the unbeliev- 

 able figure of 25 per cent. One-quarter of the sell- 

 ing price of the farm went to the land-selling spider 

 who wove the net for the settler fly. 



The records of one subdivision now show that 

 it has cost an average of $70 an acre to sell land 

 that was originally bought for $35 an acre. 



I have recently made a personal inspection of 

 the lands being reclaimed and to be reclaimed under 

 a score of irrigation works. These included both 

 government and private enterprises. In every case 

 one had only to look at the land, at the settler's 

 home, at his meager and inadequate equipment, and 

 then hear the story of hope deferred and develop- 

 ment arrested by inadequate capital to realize what 

 a serious venture it is for the unaided individual to 

 attempt to reclaim wild land. 



In the first place, the majority of these settlers 

 enter on a kind of development they do not under- 

 stand and a kind of agriculture whose methods and 

 practices are all strange and new. Before they can 

 obtain a living income from their farms they must 

 incur large expenses not required in an unirrigated 

 country ; they must have a shelter for their families ; 

 provision must be made for a water supply for 

 household uses; ditches must be dug, the land 

 cleared, the surface leveled so that water will flow 

 over it; often it must be irrigated and cultivated a 

 year before a crop can be grown. All of this ex- 

 penditure and labor is unproductive. Meantime, 

 the settler must live, and much of his scanty capital 

 is being swallowed up in living expenses. 



If this preparatory work were done in advance 

 of settlement, or under a scheme in which the set- 

 tler is given financial aid and practical oversight 

 after his arrival, the land would be prepared for 

 irrigation in half the time and at half the present 

 average expense; and if settlers could secure an 

 adequate equipment for stocking and cultivating 

 their farms, three-fourths of the failures which now 

 occur would be averted. On government reclama- 

 tion projects this organization and this financial 

 aid and practical direction should be attended to 

 by the government. On many private enterprises 



