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Show CHAPTER TEN Intensive Agriculture IN THE FIRST HALF of the 19th century, public lands were made available for sale into private ownership. This policy, which was directed at the goals of land settlement, widespread private ownership of land, and the development of a strong agrarian base for the country's economy, provided for a substantial national sufficiency in the production of food and fiber. But it was not until most of the land east of the Mississippi had been settled that a public land agricultural policy was established. The Homestead Act of 1862 x was the first of a number of agricultural land laws that made public lands available at a nominal price or without money payment to those who would develop the lands for farming. When the Homestead Act was passed, the frontier thad crossed the Mississippi River. The provisions of the Act were appropriate for agricultural settlement in the eastern portion of the Great Plains. A settler could obtain 160 acres of land if he could demonstrate that he had settled and farmed the land for a period of 5 years. As settlement moved further west, however, the increasingly arid conditions led to the need for changes in public land policy if agricultural settlement of the public lands was to be feasible. In his famous report of 1878 on the arid lands, John Wesley Powell noted the need for policies that would recognize that the requirements for successful farming in arid and semiarid regions were different from those of the more humid regions where the requirements of the Homestead Act could be met. Powell recommended that land be made available in units of 80 acres where irrigation was possible and 2,560 acres where water was not available, instead of the 160 acres available under the Homestead Act. Changes were made in' public land policy. The Desert Land Act of 1877 2 provided for land to be made available at a nominal price to those who would settle the land and irrigate it. A settler could 1Act of May 20, 1862, 12 Stat. 312 (now codified in scattered sections 43 U.S.C. § 161 et seq. (1964)). 2 43 U.S.C. §§ 321-339 (1964). obtain 320 acres and a husband and wife could each file for 320 acres. The Carey Act of 1890 3 provided for grants of irrigable land to the states. These acts were not sufficient to keep pace with the changes in American agriculture. After the turn of the century, the Reclamation Act of 1902 4 introduced a new era of reclamation homesteads; and the Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916 5 made it possible for a settler to obtain 640 acres of nonirrigable land. But these public land laws also failed to keep pace with the needs of realistic agricultural production. Water is, and always was, the key to agriculture in the arid and semiarid regions of the West. Where no water was available for irrigation, the size of a successful farm had to be several times that of one in the Midwest. Aside from raising livestock, which often required thousands of acres, only dryland farming techniques can be used and these require that considerable acreages be fallow each year; and the yields are lower than in the humid regions. In valleys where water was readily available for irrigation, on the other hand, successful farms could be comparable in size to those of the Midwest, or even smaller in some cases. But as the opportunities for irrigation became more remote from available water supplies, small farms could not, by themselves, support the investment required to get water to the land. The agricultural settlement laws have served the country well. More than 287 million acres of land were granted or sold to homesteaders alone. But we believe that the changes that have taken place in American agriculture and in the stage of development of the public land areas require major changes in public land policies for intensive agriculture. Replacement of Obsolete Laws Recommendation 68: The homestead laws and the Desert Land Act should be repealed 3 43 U.S.C. §§ 641-647 (1964). 4 43 U.S.C. §§ 371 et seq. (1964). s 43 U.S.C. §§ 291-301 (1964). 177 |