198 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



RECLAMATION SERVICE PROBLEM 



Edward Gillette, Chairman Reclamation Service Board of Review, Northern Division 



The purpose in establishing the 

 Reclamation Service was and is to 

 create irrigated farms, mainly where 

 the works are too costly and returns 

 too slow for private capital. On ac- 

 count of the upbuilding of the coun- 

 try generally, these improvements 

 benefit the government to a greater 

 extent than would be the case with a 

 private concern. In view of the above 

 fact, it pays the government to build 

 many a project which would not af- 

 ford a paying proposition to private 

 capital. 



The idea in this article is to some 

 extent to deal with the settlers' or 

 agricultural side of the problem, 

 which has not been given necessary 

 consideration. The foundation of the 

 Reclamation Service was built upon 

 the fact that the entire cost of a proj- 

 ect would, in a given time, be re- 

 turned to the government by the 

 settlers and this money used to con- 

 struct new projects on the same basis. 



Impracticable and impossible con- 

 ditions were and still are imposed on 

 the settler. He is often required, 

 without means, to make a productive 

 farm, to provide some kind of shelter 

 for his family, agricultural imple- 

 ments, work animals of some kind, 

 money for seed, water charges and 

 living expenses, until the soil is made 

 to produce a crop. The government 

 has so much money now invested in 

 irrigation projects that Congress will 

 soon be compelled to work the prob- 

 lem out in a sensible and practicable 

 manner, based upon expert opinion 

 and what foreign countries have dem- 

 onstrated to be both practical and 

 possible. It is safe to state that there 

 are very few and probably not one 

 member of Congress today sufficient- 

 ly well informed to vote intelligently 

 on the irrigation problem confront- 

 ing the government. The time has 

 arrived when more effort should be 

 devoted to a solution of present un- 

 fortunate agricultural conditions than 

 to the securing of more appropria- 

 tions for new work, although the lat- 

 ter need not be neglected. 



The cost of the projects as a rule 

 has exceeded the estimates to such 

 an extent that the settlers have be- 

 come alarmed; credit at banks and 

 stores has been refused to them on 

 the ground that the government 

 would attach the full expenditure to 

 the land and that this debt would 

 more than wipe out any equity the 

 settler had in the land or improve- 

 ments. This condition becoming 

 acute, the settlers complained that the 

 cost was more than it should be and 

 that many items charged against the 

 projects were erroneous. 



After considerable discussion the 

 Secretary of the Interior agreed that 

 a Board of Review should be appoint- 

 ed for each project, whose duty 

 should be to recommend the elimi- 

 nation of any unjust charges, giving 

 the reasons therefor. The boards 

 were to be composed of three mem- 

 bers for each project, one to' be se- 

 lected from the water users by the 



settlers, one by the Reclamation 

 Service, the other to be appointed by 

 the Secretary, and the cost of these 

 boards to be borne by the settlers. 

 The boards were selected last year, 

 their reports filed with the govern- 

 ment, but no action on them has been 

 taken to date. 



I was appointed by the Secretary 

 as a member of the boards for the 

 Northern Division of the Reclama- 

 tion Service and by those boards 

 elected as their chairman. 



Without going into details, we found 

 that on some projects more money 

 had been expended by the govern- 

 ment than the present total value of 

 the project. This was after seven 

 years' work by the settlers, who had 

 expended as much in improvement 

 on their farms as the government had 

 in building the irrigation works, being 

 about $50 per acre. The settlers on 

 an average brought a thousand dol- 

 lars to the project, varying from 

 nothing to six or seven thousand dol- 

 lars; after seven years' work the aver- 

 age indebtedness of the settler was 

 a thousand dollars, the tendency be- 

 ing toward greater indebtedness. 



A most unfortunate condition de- 

 veloped on every project. The land 

 became saturated with alkali water, 

 which, evaporating on the surface, 

 left a white covering of salts, which 

 destroyed all vegetation. In many 

 cases the settlers were obliged to 

 move to other lands, losing the im- 

 provements made on their farms and 

 start again or quit the project alto- 

 gether. It was soon found that all 

 the land under the canals would be 

 ruined, the project be a failure and 

 the government lose all the money 

 it had expended, unless some rem- 

 edy was devised. The digging of 

 deep drainage ditches at intervals was 

 the best and only solution of the 

 problem, although the cost was from 

 25 to 50 per cent of the original cost 

 of the project, besides causing much 

 extra work to the farmer, loss of 

 land occupied by the drainage ditch 

 and the material excavated and short 

 crops; in fact, it was a most discour- 

 aging condition for the settlers to 

 encounter just as they expected to 

 have a producing farm as a reward 

 for all their past labor and the ex- 

 penditure of all the money brought 

 by them to the project. One can 

 imagine that the storekeepers and 

 banks on the project who had given 

 these settlers credit or loans would 

 be placed in a precarious position, 

 even if interest rates were high, as 

 there was little or no security for the 

 principal. 



The government and the settler are 

 up against a hard proposition, the 

 only difference being that the gov- 

 ernment can stand it, while the set- 

 tler cannot. 



The sensible thing to do is to aid 

 and relieve the settler as much as 

 possible, until he can get his land to 

 producing enough to support his fam- 

 ilv and gradually pay the government 

 thei actual cost of the project. It 



must be borne in mind that all ex- 

 pense must be paid out of what the 

 land is made to produce; therefore it 

 is a simple proposition that the ef- 

 forts of all concerned must be de- 

 voted to making the farmer as suc- 

 cessful as possible. Of course there 

 are a few individual cases, where con- 

 ditions were most favorable, that a 

 settler has been able to pay the gov- 

 ernment charges, but these instances 

 are few, as the small receipts of the 

 government will show. 



On the North Dakota Pumping 

 Project the government has ceased 

 to furnish water for the settlers, and 

 their farms have gone back to the 

 dry farming stage. The cost of this 

 venture has been over one million 

 dollars to the government, besides a 

 large amount to the settlers. The 

 government operates the power plant 

 with a coal mine adjoining and fur- 

 nishes electricity to the adjacent town 

 of Williston. The settlers and town 

 authorities have agreed to pay the 

 government a sum sufficient to have 

 the plant operated for irrigation, but 

 without result so far. The question 

 arises, How does the government ex- 

 pect to have all its expenditures re- 

 turned when it abandons irrigation, 

 causing great loss to the farmers, the 

 value of whose farms has been de- 

 pleted to one-third of the amount 

 which the government has expended? 



On the Lower Yellowstone Project 

 in eastern Montana, an especially un- 

 fortunate condition exists. The Rec- 

 lamation Service experts estimated the 

 cost of water for the land, after sev- 

 eral years' investigation, at not to 

 exceed $25 to $30 per acre, with the 

 probability that it would be less even 

 than $25. With this price distinctly 

 expressed and understood by all par- 

 ties concerned, the owners of lands 

 in this valley agreed to mortgage their 

 farms for the project and to reduce 

 their holdings to one hundred and 

 sixty acres. The cost of the project 

 finally was double the estimate and 

 wiped out any equity a farmer had 

 in his own home. The widow of a 

 farmer stated that her husband had 

 worried himself into a decline and 

 passed away for no other cause than 

 that of fearing the government would 

 enforce some of its drastic orders and 

 practically confiscate his farm. Many 

 other farmers were nearly as badly 

 affected. A prosperous dry farming 

 community was converted into a 

 bankrupt irrigation community. The 

 settlers refused to- take water from 

 the government as a rule, operation 

 and maintenance charges accumulated 

 to about $400,000, some of the land 

 became water-logged and alkalied un- 

 til finally a condition existed where 

 better crops were raised by dry farm- 

 ers above the canal than on the irri- 

 gated lands under the project. The 

 settlers insisted, and still do, that the 

 government make good its promise 

 to furnish water at not to exceed $30 

 per acre, which any honorable con- 

 cern would be bound to do. The 



