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Show RECLAMATION OF THE ARID LANDS 647 and the kinds and value of crops. His figures show how Hinton, Powell, Smythe, and irrigation advocates in Congress had grossly exaggerated the extent to which reclamation of arid lands had gone. For the 11 states of the Interior Basin and the Coast he found 52,504 irrigators and 3,564,416 acres irrigated in 1889, that 68 acres was the average size of irrigated farms, and the average value of the products $14.89 an acres. If to these figures are added the data from the five states of the Great Plains-North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas-the total number of irrigators was 54,136, the acreage irrigated 3,631,381, the average size of irrigated farms 67 acres, and the average value of the products of the irrigated land $14.89 an acre. California had one-fourth of the irrigators, nearly one-third of the land irrigated, and the richest yield per acre. Newell was too much of a scientist to put faith in artesian wells or in flowing underground streams. He showed what had long since been learned in California, that one flowing well generally led to additional wells being drilled, which reduced the flow of the first one. Newell described the haphazard and disjointed development that had characterized most irrigation activity with each individual or small group being solely concerned about its own land. State laws had allowed the creation of irrigation districts with the privilege of bonding themselves for construction funds. Bonds had been sold beyond the limit established by law, planning had been poor, expenditures extravagant, and poor personnel had mismanaged the projects. Newell offered much data showing the amount of water in streams but hesitated to state the relationship between quantities shown and the acreage they could irrigate. He warned that one of the greatest curses of the country was the large number of restless men eager to speculate, constantly on the lookout for opportunities of making money without labor, always ready to take up land under a new enterprise, and to make feeble attempts at farming in the hope of selling out to someone who would really cultivate the soil. Those men were rarely successful farmers being frequently in default on their payments, and their presence served merely to embarrass and retard settlement.31 Reclaiming the arid lands of the West by irrigation was becoming a major concern of certain economic groups, including the officials of railroads which had huge land grants, real estate promoters, and the booster element which hoped for a constant growth of population. These same elements continually tried to liberalize Federal land policies to make the acquisition of the public lands easier. Now, with the best of the lands, even the best of the arid lands, in private hands they were anxious to get aid in developing irrigation projects. There is little evidence that the Desert Land Act had achieved much beyond facilitating the transfer of public land to live-stockmen, and to speculators who hoped to profit when irrigation districts were developed at public expense. Some leaders were convinced that if the remaining public lands were conveyed to the states the latter would be able to raise the necessary funds with which to build the larger works necessary to irrigate them. Harking back to the earlier efforts of the West to have the public lands ceded to the states in which they were located, they now began a new drive in behalf of cession.32 Move for Cession to States At the Irrigation Congress, held in Salt Lake City in 1891, representatives of land grant railroads, other real estate groups, state land commissioners and land boards, 31 Report on Agriculture by Irrigation in the Western Part oj the United States at the Eleventh Census, 1890 (Washington, 1894), pp. vii, 285. 32 Davison, "The Leadership of the Reclamation Movement," p. 192. |