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Show 694 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Original and Final Homestead Entries" Tear Original Final 1946... 8 158 1947___ 183 120 52 77 1948.. 199 1949-.- 193 1950... 103 152 339 1951___ 42 1952__ 2 166 1953 35 142 1954.. 72 117 134 165 1955... 92 1956... 106 1957... 192 209 1958.. 151 207 1959... 46 • 178 1960.- 3 213 1961 2 207 1962__ 12 90 1963__ 2 70 1964__ 78 1965 1 36 1966 46 a Information provided by Karl Landstrom of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior. in values, with the land too high in price for new settlers to carry with all the other charges. "It took three generations to develop a new irrigated farm," was commonly said of that early period. With greater care in selecting occupants of its farm units the Bureau was having better success in retaining people on the land and in encouraging them to put their full energies into farm making. A study it made in 1953 of 751 farm units which had been settled from 2 to 6 years, mostly by veterans (87 percent), brought out that 112 or 13 percent had changed hands, whereas on farms in the Mountain and Pacific States outside the reclamation projects the rate of turnover had been 25 percent. The reasons for selling out and leaving the projects are instructive: 81 sold at a profit; nine were defeated in their effort to make a success of irrigation farming, six left because of personality issues, six because of financial difficulties, four because of title difficulties over contested claims.167 At the conclusion of the World War II there were fears that the arid states would have a big surplus of power for which there would be no market. This quickly proved groundless. Instead, power shortages occurred when rainfall was light. To meet the continually increasing demand for water and power in the Southwest to serve its expanding industry and growing population, the West asked for further large reclamation projects principally for power and water conservation but still with an eye to the possibility of creating a few more farms. Among the new projects was the proposal to divert a part of the flow of the Trinity River through a tunnel in the mountains of northern California into the Sacramento where it would substantially enlarge the amount of water for irrigating the arid lands of the San Joaquin Valley. Authorized as part of the Central Valley project in 1955 at an estimated cost of $219,282,000, it was thought capable of providing more than a million acre-feet of water and between 233,000 and 330,000 kilowatts of electricity.1<is Larger in its scope than any previous measure was the monumental Upper Colorado River Basin project adopted on April 11, 1956. Its object was to make available to the four states of the Upper Basin those rights to the water of the Colorado that were set forth and assured by the seven-state Colorado River Compact of 1922. The act provided for the construction of a giant dam at Glen Canyon, only second 167 Reclamation Era, XXXIX (April 1953), 79-82. In addition to the requirement for capital and more careful scrutiny of applicants the account stresses the aid given settlers by professional experts in irrigation farming representing the Federal, state, and county governments. 168 Act of Aug. 12, 1955, and of July 2, 1956, 69 Stat. 719; and 70 Stat. 478; H. Doc, 84th Cong., 2d sess., Vol. 3, No. 281 (Serial No. 11923), p. iii. |