PREFACE 



THE man who removes from a crowded neighbor- 

 hood in New England to a sparsely settled locality 

 in the Far West will be struck with the immensity 

 of the country which awaits settlement and develop- 

 ment. He will not be long in discovering that the 

 new land possesses certain advantages of climate, 

 soil, and other natural resources over the place 

 whence he came. If he has the slightest interest in 

 social and economic things, he will find himself specu- 

 lating on the anomaly of surplus people in one place 

 and surplus land in another on the stern fact of a 

 region of landless man and a region of manless land, 

 and both under the same flag. Such was the author's 

 experience ; hence this book. 



The materials for this sketch have been gathered 

 by ten years of life, work, and study in various parts 

 of the West. During that period the writer's oppor- 

 tunities to observe resources and institutions were 

 unusually favorable, since his work as editor of The 

 Irrigation Age and an officer of the National Irriga- 

 tion Congress took him repeatedly to all the States 



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