The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-09-27
THE ARID LAND PROBLEM
Continued from Page One.)

Continued from Page One)
vada, whose services in promoting the
cause of reclamation have been as great
as those of anyone in the world.
1t is unfortunate that all of the adj
dresses made at the congress meeting
cannot be printed and published in full,
as they lose much in abridgement. This
| Is especially true of the responses made
yesterday to the addresses of welcome.
| All of them were gems in their way.
| That of Mr. Booth of California was
well done and the curtailed report did
not do him justice, although it gave an
| idea of the graciousness and courtesy
| of his remarks.
A Veteran.
Col. H. B. Maxson of Nevada, than
whom there is no more active delegate
present in Missoula, has been, figura-
| lively speaking, attending irrigation
| congresses all his life Nevada, he says,
is lost without artificial watering, and
the colonel's enthusiasm for irrigation
is only equaled by his praise of his
state. Colonel Maxson strongly advoy
Gates the building of storage reservoirs
by the government and also considers
a proper leasing system of public graz
ing lands by the states, the title, how
ever, to remain in the federal govern
ment until actual settlement, as the
best and only solution of the range
problem.
ALLOW the states the use of the land
in this manner" he said, land let them
use the revenue to build state irrigation
bitches and we would see the most
wonderful development we have wit
messed for some time. This policy in
connection with federal storage reser-
voirs, in my judgment, is the solution
of our half of the country. We have
been working for it for years and
years, and it has got to come" Colonel
Maxson is the official reading clerk of
the congress.
Elwood Mead, late state engineer of
Wyoming, and now on the staff of the
irrigation division of the department of
agriculture, has gained fame through
the magnificent system of irrigation
regulations worked out by him for
Wyoming. His paper this afternoon
was a severe arraignment of the pres
| ent systems of irrigation administration
| and water rights as found in most of
| the western states. The Colorado sys-
| tenn has been condemned by nearly. ev-
| cry speaker to-day as the worst that
! exists.
National Storage Reservoirs.
Gradually the subject of irrigation IN
| it's broadcast sense is being taken up
| the various branches of the federal
| government at Washington. 1t was not
| long ago in the East that Major Pow
| ellis (of the geological survey plan for
| the reclamation of arid America
| through storage reservoirs was looked
| upon as the hallucination of a hair
| Drained enthusiast. Now not only is
| the geological survey making constant
| surveys of reservoir sites, but other
| branches of the government are CO.
| operating and congress is annually
making appropriations for the work.
/ tit,ey To, lnn 81 do
| government action along the lines of
| national storage reservoirs, water
measurements. water regulations and
| the like" said Guy E. Mitchell to the
| recording secretary of the National r.
| rigation association, who is Washing
ton, d. c., newspaper man, and the
| work is all in harmony. There is the
geological survey. surveying and re-
serving storage reservoir sites as fast
| as possible; one branch of the agricul-
tural department is making investiga-
tons as to the capacity of water for
| irrigation, another branch is studying
| water rights and is endeavoring to
work out a equitable plan of water dis
trbution in irrigation districts where
the water supply is limited: other Off
Gals are studying the alkali question
as related to irrigation. others advocat'
ing a method of leasing the grazing
lands in order to remedy the overstock-
ing of the range and it's accompanying
diScomfortS and controversies, and sc
on. In fact the government has built
up for itself a considerable work along
irrigation lines and it is steadily carry
ing out this work which as yet, how
ever is only preliminary. As a mat
ter of fact the West has long been try
ing to get governmental aid for irriga
ton itself Year by year the Wes
makes it's plea to the East for SOME
help in solving the question of reclaim
ing its arid but otherwise productive
lands, and year by year the East turn:
a deaf or hostile ear This programme
has been going on ever since the posi-
bilties of western development first
presented themselves as results which
could best be obtained by the genera
| government.
"The proposition would seem to be I
fair one that some portion of the money
appropriated by congress for improving
rivers and harbors should be devotet
to this internal development of inland
western states. The development woult
be national benefit. just as the i'm
provement of the Mississippi is ma
tional benefit.
An Erroneous Conclusion.
II hear something in the East" con
tinued Mr.. Mitchell, "of opposition t
any national aid to western irrigation
| and DEVELOPMENT, on the ground tina
any policy which would tend to opel
more western land would operate to d
rectly injure the eastern farmer.
moments reflection will show this to b
an erroneous conclusion. The addin
to the western irrigated areas woul
not operate to bring their products int
competition with the products of east
| ern farmers. and the case is not pa"
allel with the opening of the vast land
of the central west, where all that wa
required was the turning of a furroy
and the planting of a crop. Take IN
state of California for instance. 1t
crops do not compete with those of tn
East Its wheat is shipped to tn
Orient and its fruit and wines whic
go East do not hurt eastern agricul
ture. On the contrary, all the frui
which California and Montana raise
indirectly benefits the East. 1t goes I
eastern cities and the money paid 70
it by the comparatively wealthy classe
of those cities is Immediately sent Eas