52 THE UTILIZATION OF THE VACANT PUBLIC LANDS 



cient to insure the cultivation of crops without irrigation. The 

 title to the soil is in the United States, and it is subject to dis- 

 posal under the general land laws ; but the control of the water, 

 which is the important element in the utilization of these lands 

 for agricultural purposes, rests with the state. Unless these two 

 elements are combined, the land is valueless, and until the land 

 can be brought to an agricultural condition, permanent settle- 

 ment, that will advance the prosperity of the state and nation, 

 cannot be expected. Hence the question is forced upon us, Are 

 the laws which have operated so favorably in the disposal of the 

 well watered and fertile lands of the Mississippi valley adequate 

 to the conditions that confront us in the arid west ? 



The act of March 3, 1877, authorizing the entry of 640 acres 

 of desert land, conditioned upon the payment of $1.25 per acre 

 and the reclamation of the land by conducting water thereon, 

 was designed to meet these conditions ; but whether from the 

 imperfection of the system or from the injudicious administra- 

 tion of the law, it has certainly failed to yield the results most 

 to be desired, even if it has accomplished the purposes of its 

 enactment. 



It is generally conceded that the lands lying along the borders 

 of the small streams and rivulets, which can be irrigated by the 

 individual efforts of the settlers, have practically been appro- 

 priated by settlers under the homestead and other general land 

 laws, and that the desirable vacant public lands unreclaimed are 

 so situated that they cannot be reclaimed by means at the com- 

 mand of the individual settler. The combined efforts of labor 

 and capital must be employed to insure a reclamation that is 

 economical and practical. Hence the homestead law is no longer 

 of practical application in the arid region, as its operation is 

 rather to retard than to promote the reclamation of these lands. 



But a more serious problem is, how to secure the reclamation 

 of the largest possible portion of the 500,000,000 acres of vacant 

 public lands within the arid region. It is estimated that only 

 20 per cent can, under the most favorable conditions, be reclaimed 

 and brought to an agricultural condition, not because of the lack 

 of irrigable land, but because of the limited supply of water, and 

 the irrigation of this quantity can be accomplished only by the 

 most economical and conservative use of the water and the most 

 judicious selection of the tracts of land to be irrigated. It is 

 therefore evident that as the solution of the problem lies in the 

 economical and practical utilization of the water, the control and 



