The Arizona sentinel. [volume] (Arizona City [Yuma], Yuma County, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1872-1911, 1890-04-05
The Irrigation Question.

Congress should use great care
in assuming, for the government,
control of irrigation. The bill of
fered BY Mr.. Peters Of Kansas
seems to be enlarged 50 as to create
a Bureau of Irrigation in the Agri-
cultural Department, to be in
charge of some scientist who will
attend to the matter. With all due
aspect to this great Government,
the average Bureau at Washington
is apparently provided to prevent
the timely, proper and economical
administration OF business. The
Department Of Agriculture natural
ly wants something to do in the
season when the distribution of
turnip seed is dull, and so we may
expect the growth in it Of bureaus
of many kinds until it supplies
hundreds of places for decayed poli-
ticians and desiccated wome'. n
dividual enterprise has Already
constructed many successful and
practical irrigation works through
out the arid region. When these
enterprises conflict, the courts set
tle the contention, and there is far
less trouble than will likely appear
when we have at the head of an IL
Tigation bureau some pompous
politician in the first stages of
over-ripcness, who has never seen
the West and doesn't know wheth-
er fields are irrigated with a sprink-
ling pot or a garden hose. There
is most important collateral to
irrigation, of which the government
already has complete control, anG
which it neglects as it does every
thing else which concerns the re-
mote future Of the country. Our
craftsmanship just now is Of the
present. Like the winged ephemera
that engender in the sunshine and
die, we go on thoughtless of
the future. The destruction Of
forests, which the government can
prevent on its domain, is rapidly
Withdrawing the means Of irriga-
ton. The arid region is now spoken
Of as lying west Of the Booth mer-
dian. In two centuries it Will he
east of the Goth meridian also. The
decreasing of the country is
producing alternate floods and
droughts. The Ohio river has
been one hundred miles wide
within the last ten days. In
midsummer an OK can wade
it. Its watershed has been stripped
of forests, and its valley has been
made dangerous from floods and
unfruitful by droughts. The forest
destruction IS something amazing
and infuriating to an economist.
The Americans are the most waste
full people on earth; the most
regardless of the future. We des-
troy, by careless fires or to max,
a potato field, timber the like of
which Europeans have not seen foI
centuries, by which they are striv-
ing to have in stock acentury from
now by careful reforesting. We
have it, plenty of it, and we are
destroying it. The governments
should do something in the way o1
prevention. In the West the dry
season is approaching, and our
mountains will soon be lines OF
fire. The sheep-herder will enter
the focest as trespasser and leave
it an incendiary, and no one vii.
lift hand to prevent the dcstruc
ton of the fountains which, so far
as California is concerned, must
supply the means ofirrigatien. If
the government would efficiently
care for what italready has under
its jurisdiction, it would he fitting
evidence Of its ability to properly
take care Of novel interests. We
hope that nothing may be hastily
done which will put irrigation in
the political control that subjects |
grave physical and material con-
Germs no the devices Of charlatans
who have ''inhooence." is. F. Alta.
Kate Vaughn invented theacccr
dion skirt and the dance which
Lefty Lind made popular in Amer
lea. Rates husband will be Duke
of WELLINGTON one of these davS