The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1909-07-14
Overwhelmed By INQUIRIES
Rush of hOmestcadcrs; Interest III
''Tribunc's'' Irrigation Exposition.

CHICAGO, ILL.,, July 13.-What has
come over the resident of the middle
west cities and rural districts alike
manifesting such interest in farm
homes in the far west, northwest, ana
southwest?
That city dweler welded to urban
life and looking upon everything out
side of it as terra incognita and not
worth while fails to understand II.
He appreciates the rush of the '49er to
the gold fields of California, and he
understands the Black Hills adven-
turer in the early '70's. But as to the
present rush for farm homes in That
vast general section of the United
States which his primary geography
80 years ago dismissed as the Great
Anne rican desert''-he is all at sea.
He isn't awake to the fact that in
the last half dozen years the farmer
has been encroachng upon that
Great American Desert in a man
ner to make the geographer of a gen
Grafton ago ashamed of himself. He
has overlooked that today. in the ma
king of preparations for farming in
dozen western states and territories,
his own national government is
spending a gold mine a month in
salaries and wages of the reclamation
service He is ignorant of the fact
that every year the total value Of
crops harvested from reclaimed lands
makes the product of the famous
Comstock mine insignificant by com
parison.
But the nerve racked. brain tired
man of the cities and the farm rent
err. paying interest upon farm invest
ments in lands valued at 500 to 5000
an acre in the middle west, has been
more awake to the something doing
ont west That old "call of the west
again has become as potent as it was
in the days of the gold fevers only
that it is so much less spectacular
since the passing of the prairie
schooner and the substitution Of the
vestibuled railroad train at home
seekers rates
S3OO.OOO.OO for Wafer.
Back to the simple life in these
last few years has proved something
more than the philosophizing of a
dreamer. Just as. it suddenly was
discovered that the states wheat crop
was worth hundreds of thousands
more than the product of its gold
mines, the present day seeker for
western farm lands needs only the
assurance of water on arid lands to
tempt him. And in the last three
years the national government alone
has spent 500, 100000 to the end of
supplying water to 100000 arid acres
which need only the water to make
gold mines of the soil.
But where the government has spent
its $100,000,000 toward graduating
that great American desert" private
enterprise has spent nearly twice as
much and brought another 100000
acres of desert into fruitfulness Tens
of thousands of settlers have gone
westward from the cities and farms
of the central west and tens of tn ou
sands more of them are making IN
quiry and taking inventory themselves,
their families, and their cash resour-
ces, with the purpose of following.
Twenty years ago the faimc" Of the
aril lands under irrigation. shook lis
head. 1t was the ear of the snide III
risation company" which was grow
ing rich establishing few miles of
rnan bitches, tapping them with a few
LATERAL stub ends of blind sluices, ana
selling at robber price tens of thou
Slnds of arid acres which not all the
established systems of waterways coul
ddmpen in twelve month
Great Task of the Nation.
But the changes have come over
the face of things. Legislation of the
states has strangled the strangling
water companies. Laws covering
water rights in these states have cal
led for more careful scrutiny in tn,
framing than have almost any other
field of legislation. The national gov
eminent has driven the cattle baron
and his hundreds of miles of barb
ed wire fencing from that former
''range country of the maps. And
with the material precedent now be-
ing set by the United States reclama-
ton service in making government
lands ready for the farmer settler, the
tremendous and lasting scale upon
which it is working has served to put
irrigation at last upon the footing
which it has deserved
Just what the United States is do
ing may be judged from official fig
ures for the year 1907. In that sim
gle year, working upon eleven re-
clamation projects in as many states
and territories. 1881 miles of main
bitches were dug, to bring 10000
acres of arid lands under cultivation
And the result? In that one year
eight new towns were established in
the desert country. 100 miles of rail-
road branch lines were built, and A.
900 settlers were attracted from the