OCR Text |
Show acres within the area susceptible of irrigation under the Truckee- Carson irrigat2on project. The soil is of the best, but in its present arid condition useless to the allottees. It was recommended to the Congress at its last session that these allotments be canceled and five sections be reallotted to the Indians in areas of 10 acres each, the remaining lands to be disposed of under the provisions of the reclamation act, butno action was taken. With the prospect that the lands will soon be brougxt under irri-gation many white settlers contemplate making homes in that vicin-ity. As the Indian allotments embrace the best of the lands, but without water the Indians are unable to comply with the law as to cultivation, no doubt attempts will be made to procure the cancellation of some of the allotments. The newspapers of .Nevada are even urging white settlers to go upon the lands, take their choice, build homes, and malre improrements, assuring them that the Reclamation Service will supply them with water and the Indian Bureau must give way, and that then no power on earth can remove them. The spreading of this doctrine, tho false, meant trouble for the allottees; for here, as elsewhere, they would be subjected to such in-di& ties and ill-usage that ultimately, unless protected by the Gov-ernment, they would relinquish their rights for a mere pittance and present another problem to be dealt with by the Government in the future. To exempt them from the operation and benefit of the recla-mation project now nearing completion would merely retard the development of the State and seriously interfere with the Truckee- Carson project, while the cancellation of the allotments because the lands could be more profitably utilized by others, or because the Indians had failed to comply with the law as to cultivation of their allotments, when such cultivation was an impossibility, would be con- ~picuouslyu nfair to the allottees. On July 27, 1906, the O5ce submitted to the Department a plan to bring these lands within a reclamation project. It provided, first, for the reservation of seven and one-fourth sections of lands em-braced in the existing allotments, to be reallotted to the Indians in 10-acre tracts; second, for the immediate extension of laterals from the Truckee-Carson irrigation project to all the lands embraced in the 196 allotments, and a grant to each allottee and his heirs forever of a water right sufficient to reclaim his allotment; third, for the cancellation of the 196 allotments and the disposition, under the homestead laws, of all the lands covered by them, except the seven and one-fourth sections; fourth, the annual appropriation of $12,064 foi ten years to repay to the reclamation fund the cost of reclaiming the lands reserved to the Indians, provided that, pending such appropria-tion, the cost of reclaiming the lauds reserved to the Indians be taxed against the canceled allotments which would primarily be disposed of subject to such tax. |