Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1912-01-18
IRRIGATION WORK
Being COMPLETED
GREAT DEAL OF MISUNOER
STANDING EXISTS REGARD.
ING PROJECTS.
Immense Amount Of Benefit Results
From Governments Endeavors in
This Line,

Approximately SCI 100000 have been
spent by the government in irrigation
work, and this vast sum is less than
half Of the amount that will have been
expended when Uncle Sans engineers
have completed the present program
OF reclamation. In nearly every west.
ern state the flood waters of the
streams are being impounded and al.
ready thousands OF families are bene-
fitting by this stored water. The activ.
tiles of the federal government in rec
lamation work have resulted in awak.
ing Widespr ad interest in irriga.
ton. which is no longer a local ques-
ton, confined to our rainless country.
Experience has shown that a more
general application OF it's principles
throughout the whole country would
result in material benefit, especial
ly in intensive agriculture such as
truck farming and small fruit growing
The farmer in the east and middle
west is subject in large measure to
the within of an uncertain rainfall.
What would it have been worth to
him during 20 years farming expert
ence if he could have turned on the
rain whenever his crops needed mois-
ture? His half crops would have been
full ones. his OCCASIONAL total failures
would have been successes. and the
money actually saved would amount
to sum which might we'll make him
thoughtful. The western man real
ICES these things. A man who has
practiced farming by irrigation, or
who has carefully studied its tadvaat-
ages rarely reverts to either the
theory or practice OF rainfall farming.
The farmer in humid regions realizes
clearly the handicaps under which
he works, but hesitates to change be-
cause he has not had the object les
sons or experience of the westerner,
Or has not givn consideration to the
matter Of applying irrigation to his
own fields.
Many eastern farmers have the idea
that the irrigation farmer is in a
chronic state of water shortage. or
has to fight excess of alkali in the soil.
or Is SO far from market that profits
Gre eaten up by transportation
charges. These things are sometimes
true. but it is a grave mistake to be.
lieve that they are unavoidable de-
fects or that they apply to all irri-
gated districts. In building its irriga-
ton projects the government selects
only fertile soil; then it gauges the
size OF the area to fit the available
water supply. The reservoirs and
canals are built as substantially as
engineering skill can devise and when
the farms have been laid out and wa
ter is running in the canals. then and
not until then, settlers are invited to
use their homestead rights on the
land. The money actually spent in
building the irrigation works is pro-
rated against each acre of land and
is repaid by the settlers in ten equal,
annual payments, without interest.
Call it paternalism If you Mke-it is
making homes by the thousand every
year.
The settlement agent of the recla.
nation service, whose Office is in the
federal building in Chicago. states
that success can not be attained with
out work, either in the west or any
where else and the man who expects
to farm an irrigated homestead with
out hard work will be grievously dis
appointed. Neither will he get rich
over night. The government holds
out no promis of fabulous profits
per acre or Of land values increasing