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Show 668 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT mended classifying lands susceptible of irrigation "up to a cost even much greater than that now entertained by the Reclamation Service, and to withdraw these lands from entry awaiting the time when they can by irrigation be made homes. . . ." He predicted that within a few years' time irrigation projects entailing a cost of $200 an acre would be considered practical because the market for land would justify such an expenditure.97 A second measure passed in 1911 provided that no entry should be made and "no en-tryman shall be permitted to go upon lands reserved for irrigation purposes" until the Secretary of the Interior shall have determined the unit of acreage and fixed the water charges, and the date when the water should be applied.98 Again Congress had acted late for announcement of all 30 of the projects had long since been made and incoming landlookers had sought out and established their claims on most of the better land susceptible of irrigation which the law belatedly tried to protect. Without claiming too much for the statistics of original homestead entries, for many factors enter into their makeup, including the fact that only a small portion were adaptable 97 Ibid., pp. 83-89. 98 Acts of Feb. 13 and 18, 1911, 36 Stat., Part 1, pp. 90, 917. Information about homestead entries in reclamation projects in these years through 1916 is almost unobtainable. For only one year before 1916 do we have data concerning original entries, that is for 1907 when 90 entries were filed for 11,385 acres. Officials of Interior have estimated the original entries for 1913, 1914, and 1915 at "more than 3,000" embracing 500,000 acres. These figures may well be underestimates for the final entries of reclamation homesteads for the same years are 1,659 for 130,479 acres. In 1916 there were 1,134 original entries and 826 final entries. Judging by later statements of the officials of the Reclamation Service many of the entries included in the table of original entries were made in antciipation of later establishment of reclamation projects and before any lands were withdrawn for that purpose. The data was provided by Karl Landstrom of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior, April 27, 1968. to irrigation, it is clear that the number of original homestead entries in the 11 arid states of the Far West climbed rapidly from 1900, when they were 17,806, to 63,-931 in 1910, and fell off sharply in 1911 when Congress tried to keep from entry the balance of the arid lands subject to irrigation until they were ready to receive water. Number of Original Homestead Entries in Principal Reclamation States 1900______________________________17,806 1901_______________________________23,968 1902______________________________31,292 1903______________________________27,738 1904________.....__________________21,057 1905______________________________21,475 1906______________________________31,433 1907______________________________45,641 1908______________________________46,945 1909________.......________________43,680 1910______________________________63,931 1911______________________________46,642 1912______________________________38,152 1913______________________________44,988 1914______________________________49,611 1915......__________________________52,850 1916_______________________________53,419 Compiled from GLO Reports. Walter L. Fisher as Secretary brought to the Interior Department in 1911 a new awareness of the social and economic issues affecting settlers on the government reclamation projects. Homesteaders were required to repay, over a period of 10 years from the time they received water, the share of the construction costs assigned to their tracts, and also their proportionate share of the annual costs of operation and maintenance. Aware that homestead lands within project areas were being taken up slowly, too slowly for the successful management and repayment of construction costs, and realizing that every encouragement should be given to those living on their homesteads and improving them, the Secretary in many instances approved |
