Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1901-01-02
ARID LAND IRRIGATION.

The hopes of the friends of irrigation
have grown brighter during the past year
than ever before. Through the efforts of
those far seeing and patriotic men who
have composed the irrigation congress-
a wide interest in the subject has been
created, ideas have been thrown out to
take deep root in the public mind and
the importance of the subject has come
to be generally understood
The New York Tribune gives further
encouraging information.> 1t says:
For many years congress has been
asked to cede to the various states the
arid lands within their borders. The
purpose of this was to allow state enter
prise to undertake their reclamation by
the placing of bonds or some other en-
fragments to capital based on a
guarantee of adequate returns Direct
government aid has also been favored by
many for an equal length of time, but
the opposition of the humid states, with
their preponderance of representation,
has heretofore rendered this hopeless
contention. The idea of ceding the arid
I
made considerable Roadway at one time.
Congress received many memorials in it's
j favor, and numerous committees have
4 journeyed to the capital from distant
! points to lend the weight of their personal
! influence to the movement The expert
I ence of recent years, however, has been
/ such as to make the transfer to the
| states of federal property or authority
unpopular. Where states have owned
| large bodies of land the trust has been
shamefully abused. Leases of this land
/ in large tracts have been secured by po-
litcal influence and bribery, and it has
been given away to individuals or COR
porations without adequate return to the
people. The state governments have
| shown little conception of the Importance
| of reserving to the homesteaders the Vir-
gin lands of the country or of encourag
ing the small highly cultivated holding
which increases the popula ton and COM
muuity wealth at a tremendous ratio.
The advocates of the cessiOn idea fought
long and hard before acknowledging de-
feat. but within the last year they have
given up all hope of the success of their
scheme and have turned their attention
to securing federal aid in the reclama
ton of land within the arid states. Ten
years ago such proposition as this met
with scanty attention from congress.
Less than three years ago the assistant
secretary of agriculture made the state
ment at one of the irrigation congresses
that the farmers of the east would never
consent to the enlargement through gov
eminent aid of the competitive agricul-
tural area of the country.
A change has come over the spirit of
tn nation in the treatment of such mat
ters and there seems to be no longer any
hesitation in giving serious consideration
to anything which may improve the COM
mercial facilities of the country or in
crease the habitable area to make room
for rapidly growing population. En-
couraged by the attitude the movement
: for federal improvement of arid lands is
taking shape and has become a tangible
Influence in national legislation, and
while it is possible that nothing will be
: done at the present short session of con-
f gress it may be regarded as inevitable
that some time in the near future per.
ton of the national surplus will be ap'
n propriated to start a movement which
q if fully carried out, will lead to an in
crease of enormous proportions in the
amount of land available for the people
and one possessing tremendous signifi