The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1895-06-26
RAINLESS EMPIRE.
MANY MILLIONS OF ACRES NOW
AWAIT RECLAMATION.
Uncle Sam Takes Hold Of the Prob
lem Of Irrigation-"The Great
Plains" to Be Re-
claimed.

MULE SAM IS ABOUT to take
practical hand in solving the
\ great problem in this coun-
try of farming by irrigation.
He has organized National board of
irrigation experts in Washington,
whose duty it will be to study the best
methods of promoting irrigation and
of developing our agricultural re-
sources wherever farming is now de-
pressed, and to give to the people
from time to time the results of these
studies in an available form, with ad-
vice, suggestion and instruction, as
circumstances warrant. This board
consists of five scientific experts from
the Department of Agriculture and
five from the Department of the In
terror.
Uncle Sam has heretofore manifest
ed in various ways his lively interest
in irrigation, and it behooves him to
do 30 still, inasmuch as nearly all the
desirable land in our public domain is
already occupied and pre-empted by
settlers, and the only means left of
adding to it is by irrigation and by
conquest. Conquest is out of the
question, under present circumstances,
and hence to irrigation alone must he
look as the sole agency for enlarging
our habitable territory and providing
homes for prospective settlers. But
this agency, it is confidently believed
by competent authorities, will be fully
equal to the emergency. The tre-
mendous benefits of irrigation are
readily seen when it is stated that in
the single State of California 6,000,0
acres, in Colorado over 5000, 600, and
in Wyoming 100000 acres of land
have been reclaimed in the past few
years from condition of utter un-
productiveness and worthlessness to a
condition of blossoming richness. The
soil of those regions was, not long
ago, wholly arid, but with intelligent
irrigation it has sprung into teeming
vegetable life, and the sole vivifying
agency in the transformation has
been water, simply water.
From present Indications it would
seem that irrigation is to become the
saving watchword and rallying-cry,
not only IN the far West, but in the
East and South as we'll. To stimulate
interest in irrigation farming in the
far West particularly, and elsewhere
incidentally by reason of example,
Congress last summer donated 10. .000,-
900 acres of public land to ten differ
ent States beyond the Rocky Noun
tains-1, 100000 to each State-the
land to be redeemed from its present
aridity by State effort and through |
State laws. The States interested are
California, Oregon, Nevada, Wash
ington, Idaho, Colorado. Montana,
Wyoming and the Dakotas, and the
lands are to be transferred to them
upon condition that they be irrigated,
reclaimed and occupied within the
next ten years. Most of these lands
lie between slopes of the Rockies or
upon plateaus or in valleys tributary
to these ranges. Before the donations
arc consummated by the Secretary of
the Interior, each State must file in
the General Land Office in Washing
ton a satisfactory plan showing the
mode of irrigation contemplated and
the sources whence the water is to be
got.
This magnificent grant is likely to
solve the preliminary difficulties OF
the desert-land problem, and give a
great impetus to the irrigation move.
ment. The law making the donation
is the sequel to a series of il-devised
measures enacted previously on the
subject, beginning in 1877. The law