164 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



thousands of farmers who prospered more or less, 

 there were more who met hardship or failure or 

 even ruin on the farms of our reclamation projects. 

 The soil of half only of one project, for example, 

 was found fit for cultivation, doubling the burden of 

 those cultivating it. Thousands of farms had been 

 abandoned. Many farms purchased at high prices 

 from speculators, who had fattened them for the 

 market, perhaps never will free their new owners 

 from the slavery of possession. Disappointment and 

 failure have threatened scandal many a time. 



"Building canals," wrote Commissioner Mead 

 in 1927, "is only the initial stage of reclamation. 

 Preparing the land for cultivation, securing settlers, 

 and teaching them the technique of irrigated farm- 

 ing are all necessary. There is the same need for or- 

 ganization and constructive planning and expert di- 

 rection in the succeeding stages as in the first. Re- 

 alization of this fact has been slow. At the outset 

 there was a mistaken but confident belief that build- 

 ing canals would alone create agriculture ; that, once 

 water was available, settlers would rush in and with- 

 out aid or direction complete the difficult and costly 

 work of clearing and leveling the land and do many 

 other things needed to change deserts into farms. 



"For more than twenty years there were no in- 

 vestigations into the cost of changing raw land into 

 farms or as to the capital or credit needed by those 

 who did this. No inquiry was made into the quali- 

 fication of settlers, nor was authority given to reject 

 the unfit. 



