The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1925-10-22

be obtained, was ignored by these be-
ginners.
The settler in Iowa could begin as
farmer, doing farm work. The set
tier on a reclamation project has at
least years works that is not ag-
riculture but engineering. He con-
fronts tract Of unleveled, unfenced
sagebrush. Before he can grow crop
he has to have shelter for his FAM
lily and his work team. His land has
to be fenced to keep out range cattle
and sheep. The inequalities of the
surface have to be smoothd off so
that water will flow over it evenly.
For beginner, this is hard and dis
couraging work. It requires pc
culiar knack and skill to do the work
properly and it is often enormously
expensive, costing as high as $75 to
500 an acre. The settler sees his
savings eaten up doing unproductive
work, and when his capital is gone,
he has to succumb.
A majority of settlers on these pro-
jects did not know what crops to
grow or when they should be watered.
All the conditions were strange and
new to them. If these harassed farm
ers could have been organized so that
their efforts could have been COM
bined and they could have touched ell
bows in preparatory development,
it's influence in keeping up their mo-
rale would have been invaluable.
Working alone, without practical adj
vice or direction, much that they did
was done at disadvantage.
The Problem of Collection
Lack of aid in farm development
has burdened inexperienced settlers
on these projects with heavy private
Indebtedness and caused thousands of
mortgage foreclosures. This has de-
moralized reclamation finances. The
unpaid assessments for construction
and operation for the five years from
1920 to 1924, total $8,5OO,OOO. This
was increased in 1924 by over 3d.
100000. Some of the projects during
practically nothing. In some cases,
that period have paid practically ev-
erything they owed. Some had paid
failure is due to unfit lands. No mat
ter how hard the settler works, he
can not earn the money to repay pro-
ject costs. On others, policy of drift
has caused good projects to remain
undeveloped, the fertile soil uncul-
tivated.
The lower Yellowstone project in
Montana is an example of the latter
type. It needs only good farmers
working on small farms to make this
as good an irrigation project as those
around Salt Lake and Denver. Owing
to the fact that a large part of the
land is held by spectators who are
not farmers, only $4,000 acres out
of $4,000 acres in the project were
irrigated in 1924, fifteen years after
water was first supplied. Some of the
unirrigated land is dry-farmed, there
being enough rain to grow small
grain; some is still covered with ma
tive grass. If these owners had been
real irrigators, desiring to farm. no
compulsion to irrigate would have
been needed, but under system
which opened the land to settlement
to the fit and unfit on equal terms,
communities were gathered together,
here and elsewhere, many of whose
members knew nothing of irrigation
farming and never intended to be-
come farmers.
On another project which we are
trying to salvage, l recently went
over the list of occupations of the
early settlers. The first was a deep
sea diver, the next was the wife of
an itinerant baseball player, the third
had been a missionary in China. A
defunct bank owned several farms.
A painter, plumber, a carpenter, all
living in distant cities, owned farms,
all unoccupied and untitled. A transit
ent trained nurse had invested her
savings in one Of these speculative
temptations. She had neither the
money nor inclination to do more.
None of these people have paid water
charges or delinquent county taxes
from three to five years. Creation
of great agricultural community or
the solvency of an irrigation project
can not be secured with this kind of
human material. On projects like this
the fundamental problem is to get
real farmers to replace these dere-
licts who have given up hope but
linger on, like Micawber, waiting for
something to turn up. In one neigh
borhood there are 20 abandoned
farms and a lack Of morale every
where. If an expert practical commit
tee had selected these settlers and
they had been advised about their
work, there would now be no impor-
tant salvage program or possible loss
to either settlers or the government.
The deep sea diver would have stuck
to his element, the bank would not
have failed.
Water for Irrigation Should be
Worth Its Cost
The fundamental question of all
future projects ought to be, will the
productive value of the water in ir-
rigation be worth what it costs to
provide it? This is far more irnnor-