The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1915-12-18
TAKE OFF THE BLANKET

BY reason of its bearing on the underground water
survey recently undertaken in this state, the tribune Is
reprinting today an editorial from the Journal OF EIec-
tricitv, Power and Gas, published at San Francisco. Ii
deals. chiefly with the experience OF California IN the un
foreground water development of that state.
1t is worth noting that the number OF pumping plants
in that state have increased during the last five years by
25o Der cent and that 22 per cent of the irrigated lands OF
California are now supplied from underground sources
Taken in connection with the developments already maze
in Clark, Nye, Lyon, Humboldt and White ZINE counueS'
it gives ample justification for the work recently inaus-
urated by the University of Nevada IN tins ana other sec
tons.
But the coolest and wettest blanket that has recently
fallen over any recent development project affecting the
public domain came from a source from which 1t was least
to be expected. 1t came in the form OF an order ITO"
Washington last August and reads as follows:
Applicants to make entry of land under the des--
ert land laws should be made clearly to understand
that where a water supply is made available for IL
arigation purposes by means OF a pumping plant'such
plant must be of a capacity to make available at te
time of final proof, a sufficinent supply OF water TO
irrigate all irrigable land embraced IN a particular
entry.
How many pumping plants will ever be installed un-
der these conditions? The question answers itselt-none.
If the Secretary of the Interior had asked those whose IN
terests are opposed to the settlement of the public domain
to formulate for him an order to make effective whatever
it was he had in mind, they could not possibly have served
their own interests better than this order served them.
How many prospective settlers are capable of financ-
ing such an enterprise, covering, let us say, $50 acres and
involving from five to twenty wells equipped with pumps
and power for a capacity of 1900 gallons per minute?
That is the meaning of the order, for the department st1pu-
lates one second foot for 100 acres. Why not give the
settler a chance to grow? If he can develop 500 or even
800 gallons of water per minute he could grow, and from
the results of this work he can survive while growing
while making his ranch or farm. We assume that the
public lands will be sett1ed-when Settled-by the man OF
small means. SO far as these lands are concerned, they
are as effectually closed to him by this order as the banking
business, the steel business or the steamship business.
There are several successful pumping plants in operax
ton in this state with which the government has had moth
ing to do. They were installed without even the know "
edge of the government, but there are very few of them
with a capacity of even 500 gallons.
How many men with $50 acres of land all susceptible
of irrigation BY pumping are %irrigating all of it every
season, even with equipment at hand?
The effect of the above order is apparent to every
man, woman and ten-year-o1d child in Nevada. And what
a pity it is that in the great department of the interior there
is no one with sufficient interest and Influence to get the
ear of the head of that department long enough to save
him and the arid states from such blunders as this.
1t costs money to develop desert lands by the sinking
of wells; it involves a risk that mighty few people in Wash
ington are likely to take: the land in its present state is
worth nothing. as attested by its idleness since the world
took form. If somebody can be found to develop even
twenty acres out of every half section and never goes
farther, he will have done more for the world than the man
who tils a section already developed.
II any man from any eastern state can be induced to
undertake the development of 800 acres of land, with the
assurance that on the development of even 300 gallons of
water per minute and pumping equipment, that land will
be his, he will receive the most cordial welcome any state
could extend. But who will expect him to risk the capital
necessary for this initial equipment without additional
prospects, any more than to spend his money on an unde-
veloped mining prospect with nothing further in view
than the ore in sight.
Washington should promptly remove this blanket.
The publication of the figures yesterday showing tie