Wichita eagle., 1889-04-26
THE SO-CALLED ARID LANDS.

| proof of the growing scarcity of rich
lands open to the homestead-makine
people of the republic. Within the last
twenty-five years areas large enough foI
empires have been pre-empted or taken
under the timber claim or homestead
laws. Excepting Oklahoma and the In
dian Territory and the Indian reserva-
tions in Dakota and other portions OF the
northwest, the best forest and timber
lands have passed from the control eff
the national government and have be-
come private property. What IS to be
the lot of the emigrant from Europe or
the eastern states who seeks the brsad
west when the comparatively few re-
manning acres of wild woodland or
prairie have been settled? 1t is our
"cheap land" that has made us what we
are.
Fortunately we have great and untried
resources Of agriculture awaiting de-
velopment. A writer in the Chicago
Inter Ocean estimates that the so-called
arid region of the United States covers
author to be equal to the combined areas
of Great Britain and Ireland, Belgium,
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, France,
Germany, Italy, Holland and Austro-
Hungary. The rainfall Of this region is
inadequate to the successful pursuit of
agriculture; but other regions equally
arid have been brought into cultivation
by irrigation. British India, as is re-
marked by writer in the current num-
ber of the Forum, from whom most of
rived, has an area less by one-third than
that of the arid region of the United
States, and it supports a popula-
lation of the most oppressvely taxed
people in the world, and mainly by ir-
rigation. Were the Hindoos capable of
self government, or were they not pay
ing taxes to liquidate the blunders and
extravaganza of alien rulers past and
present, they would be among the most
prosperous people of the world.
The granaries of the world long were
in districts where the rainfall was insult
ficient for fertilization of the SOIL
Egypt, Persia, India and Ceylon in an
cient times raised vast surpluses of food
on soils artificially watered. When
India possessed herself of the Indian
province of Madras ''she found $4,000
reservoirs, 10000 miles of aqueducts and
300,0 900 seperate masonry works, con-
sisting of sluices and vase weirs." In
our own country the land now culti-
waited by irrigation is estimated at g.
500, 900 acres, "varrying in value from
$40 to 800 per acre and yielding net
income equal to the interest on a much
larger sum than its valuation" Lieu
tenant Schwatka recently told the read
ers of the Inter Ocean of his
visit to little farm of twenty
two acres, reclaimed by irrga-
ton from the waste of sage brush, and
now valued at $60,000. And this is not
because of its proximity to any city or
because of any other extrinsic advan-
tages, but simply because its produce
pays handsome profit on a capital of
100000. 1t is doubtful if the like can
be said of any twenty-five acres re-
claimed from woodland or prairie.
Congress during it's last two sessions
has appropriated $350,000 for the COM
of a survey of reservoirs,
bitches and canals for the irrigation of
arid lands, and special committee of
the senate is to report in December next
as to what legislation is needful for their
1t is certain that the ex-
tent of what once was called the ''desert
region" of America is to decrease contin-
ually and that much of it is to be made
more fruitful by irrigation than the
choicest lands of the eastern and middle
states have been made by nature.