The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-26

Two years ago I presented in my report what might be termed pro- gram of internal development with respect to land; a railroad into the interior of Alaska; a coal-leasing law for Alaska; new reclamation act extending the time within which pay ments were to be made by water users and under which land would be fore ed into use; a water-power bill gov erning the use of public lands for hy- dro-electric developments a general development bill providing for a prac- ticable method of disposing of our oil, gas, coal, phosphate, and potash with out danger of monopoly or non-use. Of this program the larger portion has been adopted, and the last two have been successful in the House. The plan is to make the West help in it's own development. The royalties from oil, gas, coal and phosphate lands and from water-power develop ed on public lands should be used for the retaining of the arid country and then divided with the States.
 The Alaskan railroad is being built. The Alaskan coal-leasing bill has al- ready been put into effect in a small way by the granting of permits for the operation of small and isolated tracts for industrial and local use. The lease under which the larger fields which have been reserved may be ta- ken up has been drafted in co-opera- ton with some of the most eminent mine operators of the country. Its utilization must, of course, await the opening of means of transportation. The new reclamation act has brought courage to the water users, who found their difficulties almost overwhelming, so new and strange to the people of our northern blood are the problems of irrigation.
 The need for the general develop ment bill is not difficult to present. The lands of the Pacific Coast are be- ing used intensely in some parts and these lands call for fertilization. One of the elements which must be re- stored to the soil is phosphorous. This is native in most soils but is needed by all after long use. The orange orchards of California and the apple orchards of Oregon and Washington, not to speak of others, draw heavily upon the soil. And for its replen- ishing the orchardists are buying phos- phate rock in Florida, which is car ried 5000 miles by water and then in land, while in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming we have under withdrawal nearly 3,000,00O acres of land that are underlaid with phosphate rock. There is nos law to-day under which this can be secured. In Montana and elsewhere throughout the West are smelters which produce the sGlphuric acid necessary for the conversion of this rock into practicable fertilizer. So that the development of this in dustry waits only upon the passage of a law which will put this mineral at the command of those who need it.
 Our coal lands are now subject to sale at appraised values based upon an estimate of the content of the land. This is at best an experts guess, and converts each purchase into a gam ble, both on the part of the govern ment and the purchaser. The bill does not exclude this method, but supplements it with a simple provis- ion by which the purchaser, instead of buying at hazard, may pay a royalty upon what he produces. IVgives the man of moderate means an opportun- ity to secure a mine.
 As to oil and gas, the House com mittee had extensive hearings at which no practical man engaged in the plan proposed. The existing law, under which such lands have been ta- ken up, is to be characterized by no politer word than as a plain misft Oil is found hundreds and sometimes thousands of feet below the surface of the earth, yet the law applicable to its acquisition is the placer law, in tended toNapply to the recovery of su- perficial minerals. This law is of TO- mantle origin, for it is the outgrowth of the experience of the Argonauts who went to California in the days of f49. The measures adopted by these men for the government of their claims along the mountain streams, where they did no more than lift the river sands to the pan or rocker, fin- ally were incorporated into law. And the governing principle of this law was, that before a man could claim ownership in a placer claim he must have found gold there; and until he did, others might at their bodily risk to be sure, attempt to make prior dis covery, The utter inapplicability of such a principle to mineral found perhaps 1000 feet below the surface, and where the discovery must be made at a cost of twenty, fifty or hundred thousand dollars, is clear beyond comment. Now, under this impossible law a large amount of public land Mas taken up," and by that is meant that it was located on and thereafter became general ba- sis for speculation and sometimes was developed. That the law is as hazar- dous to the investor as it is unsatis- factory to the Goyernment is univer-