The Julesburg grit-advocate. (Julesburg, Colo.) 1907-1972, 1909-05-07
Irrigation Solves
Many Problems.

Nowhere in the world is agriculture SO intelligent
as in the irrigated regons nowhere is it Productive
ana nowhere else have the problems Of poverty isolation
and ia lure been effectually attacked
Col Harvey W. Scott. editor of the POrta ore
gniah and dean Of journalism the Pacific slope, who
has been actively identified with practically every up
lift movement in the northwest during the last thirty
five years. says this in urging co operation
and commenting upon the importance the nation of
the National Irrigation congress which vii have its
seventeenth session in Spokane, August TO IA adding
III the people were Interested in the events in pro-
portion t. their Importance next
August would plunge the whole country int wild
citement. One imagines however, that our national
equanimity will not be greatly perturbed by ii.
Although the subject be discussed relates
vitality to human happiness although the way we
finally answer the questions which the eminent speakers
at the congress will raise decide whether 800 years
from now the United States shall be oursng empire
or desert solitude, nevertheless it will not be easy
arouse more than perfunctory public interest
'The great names of the orators, the pOmp of civic
festvy the display of governmental science will all be
needed to hold the languid of the Indifferent farmer
whom nothing short of an earthquake will compel to
think study Irrigation would rain gold into his tubs
If he would them out, but he won't until he is har
ried and bounded into doing it.
"But the farmer is than other men Few
of take than feeble and spasmodic
the things that concern most deeply Consider how
speedily an audience vanshes whenever speaker
touches education, subject whose import is
weighter than irrigation
ut is only by fits and starts that be induced
to think OF the salvation OF immortal souls. Some
sporadic Billy sunday attention these
precious entities once in while but how long does it
stay fixed? Salome dancing frivolous hornppe makes
us forget time and eternity.
If man were truly rational being the minute he
learned that irrigation would double the produce his
farm, in such favored region as the Willamette
valley, he would rush build dams and dig ditches
but he doesn't. He waits until somebody has pushed
aud prodded him.
il "Such congresses the which will meet in
Spokane next August valuable for reterating
old truths han for revealing Iteration is all
that the world from relapse barbaric squat
Hearing the truth about irrigation thing
once nnly does not the slightest gcsk~~-We must
hear 1t Thousand times and in every possible key
II mankind is like the starving pauper who was or
his way to the graveyard to be buried alive for his in
doence. The mercful judge offered suspend sentence
if ybody would feed the condemned. kindly farmer
offered meal Of corn. is it sheed? inquired the
pauper with languid interest. No it was Drive
them said the pauper. we need such gatherings
the national irrigation congress she'll our corr
for
II "Cutivation originated in countries where mer
were forced to rrgate the land perish Babyonia
and Egypt were laid the foundations every science
and all the arts. The plain enough Irrigation
drives men to think and plan the one hand and to
cooperate with his neighbors the The habi
OF thinking about subject leads him exercise
brain others, and presently he discovers the great
truth that ideas upon the whole beneficial to hin
rather than baneful.
H Co-operation is the only way of the most rura
difficulties and it is castor in irrigated regions thar
elsewhere for divers One is that irrigation de
ponds from the beginning cooperation. But also
the farms are necessarily small, people live
gether, contiguity develops confidence. the plane OF
pubic intelligence rises, the communal consciousness
sets to work and presently the whole neighborlood
studies. buys, sell and thrives man."