924 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 363. 



tained in this manner from any one state 

 would not be large, but would enable a be- 

 ginning to be made and at the same time 

 give the state an opportunity to demon- 

 strate its fitness to continue in the work of 

 its own development under these conditions. 



A part of the discussion which followed 

 this paper is given : 



F. H. Newell : The proposition pre- 

 sented by Mr. Bond is one which has been 

 fully discussed by committees in Congress. 

 The general conception is not new, but the 

 point which he emphasizes, of the importance 

 of state control of national funds in irriga- 

 tion development, is one which, it is feared, 

 will prove a stumbling-block to progress. 

 Relatively few of the states would be bene- 

 fited if the proceeds from the disposal of 

 public lands in each state were devoted ex- 

 clusively to works in that state. This nar- 

 rowing of development is undoubtedly the 

 outgrowth of an attempt made to cede the 

 vacant public lands to the states to be dis- 

 posed of by. the legislatures. This has been 

 shown to be contrary to the whole spirit of 

 national administration of the public lands ; 

 these lands being held, not for the benefit 

 of the states in which they are located, but 

 for the making of homes by citizens. There 

 is no apparent ground for the fear of conflict 

 between national and state authority. 

 There can be no question as to the impor- 

 tance of national development of vacant 

 public lands, which still include nearly one- 

 third of the United States. It is practicable 

 for the government to erect storage reser- 

 voirs, and to divert large rivers to a point 

 where settlers can take out the water and 

 make for themselves homes as was done by 

 the pioneers. The further limitation, how- 

 ever, which Mr. Bond seems to insist upon, 

 that this work should be done by state offi- 

 cials, is one which is so opposed to all ex- 

 perience and precedents that it would 

 doubtless weaken the movement in the 

 minds of those who have studied the subject. 



George H. Maxwell, Chairman of the 

 Executive Committee of the National Irri- 

 gation Association, expressed the opinion 

 that the paper by Mr. Bond tended to create 

 an entirely wrong impression as to the re- 

 lation of the national Government to irriga- 

 tion development. No one, he said, contends 

 or proposes that the national Government 

 should undertake in any way to regulate 

 the distribution of water in conflict with 

 the laws of the state. It is proposed that 

 the Government shall do two things : First, 

 enlarge its policy of internal improvements 

 to include water storage through appropria- 

 tions under the river and harbor bill, the 

 water so stored to be turned into the stream 

 in the dry season and distributed under the 

 state laws just as though nature had put it 

 there. Second, build such reservoirs and 

 irrigation works as may be necessary to 

 bring water within reach of settlers on the 

 public lands, reserving lands for which 

 water is thus made available for actual 

 settlers only, and charging the lands in pro- 

 portion to benefits with the actual cost of 

 the Government works. In carrying out 

 this latter policy the Government occupies 

 the relation to the states of a land owner, 

 and will proceed just as any other land 

 owner would do to accomplish the re- 

 clamation and settlement of his land. It 

 is conceded in Mr. Bond's article that the 

 national resources must provide the funds 

 for this irrigation development. This being 

 so, the national Government will administer 

 their disbursement. It has steadily refused 

 to cede the public lands to the states, because 

 experience has shown that such a policy 

 would result in the lands being improvi- 

 dently administered or absorbed in large 

 holdings by speculators. The same result 

 would follow if the control of their reclama- 

 tion were turned over to the states. The 

 national Government will never appro- 

 priate money from any source for state 

 engineers to spend to reclaim the public 



