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Show f>62 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT take up land several years before there would be any water available for irrigation.78 On the Truckee-Carson project in Nevada, where the building charge for water rights was to be $22 to $30 an acre in addition to the maintenance charge, it was reported that many settlers had arrived with neither capital nor experience and had failed. The heavy snow and destructive floods of 1907 had induced the engineer to release much of the winter flow of the Carson and Truckee Rivers unnecessarily and wastefully, as it turned out, for the very light snow of early 1908 was not sufficient to meet the demand for water. Newell realized the need of having a weather station high on the watershed of the two streams to meet just such a situation.79 It was the speculatively inclined people who acquired a settlement right or filed on land in an irrigation district with no immediate plan for its development who were to retard the success of projects. As Newell pointed out in 1913, some men living on irrigation farms spent most of their time in a nearby town at some occupation other than farm making; others lived in town while investing their savings slowly in improving the land by setting out fruit trees that in the future might pay off but currently were contributing little to the farming community; and finally there were those who neither lived on their land nor invested in its improvement, but merely waited for an increase in its value. The latter were "a great obstacle to the success" of the project as they did not use the water when it became available and raised the costs to others who did.80 Newell early found there were large private ownerships within areas to be provided with water from Federal projects and was adamant that the excess-lands provision should be enforced. In 1905 he said in his report: The lands in private ownership which may be reclaimed must be subdivided and put into the hands of home makers who will cultivate the soil in small tracts of 160 acres or less. Large holdings must be subdivided, or an agreement be entered into to subdivide the tracts when water is available, in accordance with the terms of the reclamation act.81 An interesting arrangement was worked out between the Reclamation Service and the Northern Pacific Railroad whereby the lands the company owned through a subsidiary in the Lower Yellowstone area were to be sold at $2.50 an acre exclusively to new settlers who would be eligible for a water right.82 In contrast to this is an agreement with the Crow Indians whereby they ceded 1,100,000 acres of their large reserve in southwestern Montana. After the Indian allotments had been selected, and appraised for sale if the allottees preferred not to retain them, the balance of the reserve was to be subject to settlement under the Reclamation Act and land suitable for irrigation was to be sold in small tracts to actual settlers at $4 an acre.83 The Crow lands were opened to settlement in 1906 but, because it was unclear whether reclamation funds would be available because of other commitments and the desire of private parties to control "the development of these irrigation projects, the lands were not withdrawn under the terms of the reclamation act." The result, said a frustrated Commissioner of Reclamation, "has been that the lands were settled without restriction, and a number of futile attempts have been made to organize the settlers and construct irrigation works." He reported very little had been 78 Seventh Annual Report, 1908, p. 77, 90. "Ibid., p. 139. 80 Twelfth Annual Report, 1913, p. 5. 81 Geological Survey, Twenty-Sixth Annual Report, 1905, p. 299. 82 Reclamation Service, Fourth Annual Report, 1905, pp. 206-207. 83 Ibid., 226. |