The Washington critic., 1890-05-01
LAND IRRIGATION.

La ~ II lNElGAi
Mr.. Flower recently delivered a
speech in the House on Western irriga-
tion, which embodies a good deal of
practical wisdom TO which the country
will do we'll at this time to take heed.
No one has traversed the great plains
Of the West and observed the evi- |
dences of their productiveness under |
the partial system of irrigation now ex-
listing without feeling that, with the
requisite supply of water, vast and
valuable region would be opened up for
dense settlement and for successful
farming operations.
Mir. Flower does not deny the value
ard importance Of irrigation. He ad-
mits that its utility has been proved in
France, Italy, Spain and India. But
he concludes that irrigation is not now
necessary in this country because we
have no immediate and pressing de.
mand for additional land. The promo.
ton of any scheme of irrigation by the
Government would be simply the pro-
motion of bonanza farming" and that
exactly means the introduction of the
factory system in food production.
The much abused and very elastic
general welfare clause of the Con
stitution win hardly avail to cover the
large expenditures which an extended
plan of irrigation would render neces-
sary. The region to be so improved at
the last census represented but 6 per
cent. of the entire wealth of the coun-
try and the question is naturally sug-
gested as TO whether it is fair to author
ize an immense outlay of public money
to build up a particular section. Be-
sides, it would not be the people who
would be the beneficiaries of an irriga-
tion scheme. In one of his reports
Major Powell says
Toa great extent the redemption of all
these lands win require extensive and COM
prehensive plans, for the execution of
which aggregated capital or cooperative
labor will be necessary. Here individual
farmers, being poor men, cannot undertake
the task
AGAIN, ne says:
We are In the midst of nothing less than
an agricultural revolution. AS If by magic,
bonanza farms have sprung up in the West.
| Farms of thousands of acres are getting to
| be quite common There is one estate Of
| 350,000 acres, covering an area of 547 square
miles. These huge farms are simply big
food factories, with the temporary good of
the factory system, the cheapeniug of its
products, whether shoes or grain but with
th9 permanent evils of the factory system
reproducing themselves in agriculture.
These food factories are worked exhaust
iVely, being mere speculations, from which
capital hopes soon to retire, and in which,
therefore, it has no regard for the future
fertility of the land. The hired men have
no hold of the land they work, nor does the
land hold them.
Instead of a settled, free farmer popula-
tion, building up homes, developing villages
and towns, laying the foundation for a
sound society, We have gangs of hired
laborers, drawn from distance, herded on
the ground during the busy season and then
turned loose to shift for themselves; men
trained in alternate hard toll and loaling,
making no homes, furnishing the recruits
or those bodies of tramps which of late
ears, in dull times, the West has found
roaming around with constant danger to
seciety.
II this system continues and develops it
will turn out a class of agricultural labor
ers Wholly new to our country incipient
raupers and criminals, where We hoped to
see hardy yeomanry The prospect is OF
in indefinite continuance of this state OF
things and of a vast increase of it..
Mr., Flower holds with a good show of
justice that it cannot be right for the
Government of the United States to
OF enly assist in the creation of bonanza
farms or in the introduction of pauper
methods of agriculture.
The Hon. George p Marsh, for many
years our Minister to Italy, gives his
impression of the effect of the irrigation
system in that country in the following
sentences:
The tendency of irrigation, as a regular
agricultural method, is to promote the ac-
emulation Of large tracts of land in the
hands of single proprietors, and cousc-
quently to dispossess the smaller land.
owners.
A comparison of farm values show
that during the last decade, while Colo
rado has advanced over S20,000,0 ,0J0,
Vermont declined over $50 000, 900, and
that while Dakota also advanced oveI
500, 900, New Jersey fell back
nearly so, ,O0O, 600, The question which
is therefore involved IN any genera
scheme of Western irrigation is whether
the Government will undertake on q
large scale, and at the expense of the
whole nation, TO cheaper the farming
lands of the country and to still further
impoyerish its farmers
a VERY INTERESTING recent visitor
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