SS SSS Bie ae eS SSS SS Se BEFORE THE é i \ C tH—I owl o > COMMITTEE. ON URRIGATION OF ARID LANDS. /\ / HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, RELATING TO THE RECLAMATION OF THE ARID LANDS ~*~ OF THE UNITED STATES. JANUARY 28 TO FEBRUARY 9, 1901, WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. TOO. CON TEN TEs. Hearing January 28, 1901_ ne ar er eee Statement of Hon. F. G. Newlands, of Nevada_..__.- ere of F. H. Newell. hydrographer, United States Geological urvey Statement of Geor ge H. Maxwell, chairman of executive committee of National Irrigation ARSOGIRINON: 2225. = 225-22 eesh - Sout te elias Ge Hearing January 1, 1001. ccs coves cen. ccs eecee: veeeeaeeons Statement of Nelson H. Darton, geologist, United States Geological Survey Se enon of F. H. Newell, “hydr ogr ‘apher, United States Geological Survey _.___. Dy eee ee ee ee Statement of Hon. Frank W. Mondell, ‘of Wyoming sae iEHlearnine Hebroary 721901 (a. my). 2-2-2) 22-282 5 bee os ee ee eee Statement of Gitord Pinchot, chief forester, United States sid tment OMAP TICUDUNG =e: saute see ee a, oe ee ae Pee ee ee Statement of Hon. J. F. Wilson, of Arizona _.....____.--.. ... 222. ee. Statement of Hon. Frank W. Mondell, of Wyoming Pe35 eee eae Statement of Hon. F. G. Newlands, of Nevada ___.........-....-0. ... Statement of Elwood Mead, irrigation eiice United States Department OleNPrIe niece = Saree on) Cee es Ml Peel ee Bee Hearing February 7 es WA Ora etal et ee cee ere a Wis oe nes ue cathe Statement of George H. Maxwell, chairman of executive committee of National Irr ivation PSSHO CIE] OLIN Sue ane rae ee het Statement of Elwood Mead, irrigation expert, United States Department GleAPVICUILULOL J. ea Bese fag ame ee ees ot ads cases es ee ane OVARY. LO el cicelte naa mid cia aw Sis Soe Seen OR ie vebocces sbeee Statement of George H. Maxwell, chairman of executive committee of National Irrigation Association. _..__........_-. gstiat uch ates , Dail i Orerons 20 2 Seat ccs S ae 38, 435, 873 Wolonidowse )-- == sac . 41,988,377 | North Dakota .-._....-. .-- 19, 500, 555 Idaho_____. .--... .---.--_-- 34, 225,149 | South Dakota __..._._....... 18.006, 396 JEERONSE eR Ee Sed ie eee em ToL WOO) WWtal a. 28 oO, Mole OG Montana. 22 2) oe = thee bk 74, 558, 143 Washington _..-.......---. 19,098, 420 Nebraska ................-. 10,799,332 | Wyoming.................. 52, 055, 248 Nevada... 22225242 5 2nece 42, 385, a This list shows something of an even distribution of these lands over the arid States and Territories, and in view of this fact it becomes important to know something of how much of it is subject to recla- mation, and how. As to this, the most authentic means at our com- mand is the report of the special Senate committee of the United States Senate on the reclamation of arid lands and irrigation, made to the Senate in 1890. In that they reported that there was from 100,000,000 to 150,000,000 acres of this land that could be made pro- ductive, and that only by means of irrigation—more than five times the quantity of reclaimed land in British India, from whieh 110,000,000 people are maintained. Some maintain that these lands should be ceded to the States and Territories. All history shows that this would be a failure. Especially is it so here. By the acts of Congress, March 2, 1849, to the act of March 12, 1860, nearly 60,000,000 acres of land of the General Government, lying in 78 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 15 States of the Union, known as swamp lands, were ceded to the vari- ous States in which they lay. They are as follows: Acres. | Acres. Alabama... 22.2.5. . 2-222 414,310 | Michigan: -..2.5<< is..s5ce= 5, 729, 848 Aap ears seeeeGeat a2 EK 7, 668, 987 | Minnesota weaeeciaene eae ceSe, oeOOmaS OaTOrN ars. € = so c52 5 oye - =e 1,773,857 | Mississippi..........--..---. 8, 825, 437 10 Vaiss 3 (2 eee ees ae eee ere 16, 681,302 | Missouri _.........-....-...- 4,495,816 Tllinois__.......- Boiecenede lphOaa len (ONTO: 2c 22 aes oe 25, 660 dndianae ye si. 23/2222 eeks 1, 265,407" | Oregon ...2.<. sco ac. ce sence 315, 164 LOWei wehbe) ole. So 22 Ss eee 933,949 | Wisconsin ...........-..---- 3, 349, 1382 Louisiana... _........-...- 8,968,880 | These are the beneficiary States of the swamp-land grants; and they are all, with a single exception, better able, so far as monetary expenditure may be concerned, to reclaim these lands granted to them by means of the levee system (and which is but the counterpart of the reservoir and canal system necessary to reclaim the arid lands, and far less expensive) than any of the arid States and Territories are to reclaim the arid lands in their boundaries. This will not be denied by those who oppose this theory I apprehend, because through the whole space of nearly fifty years not a single one of these States has ever made a single record of success by the reclamation of any of these lands that had to be reclaimed. They mostly went into the hands of alien speculators and land sharks for naught. On the other hand, the history of other countries that have taken the matter of reclaiming their arid lands in hand as a national enterprise for their people have made a prime success of if in every instance. From time immemorial Egypt has maintained her entire population on lands that Egypt reclaimed as a national enterprise, and by it, in ages past, gained the name and title ‘“‘The granary of the world. m9 This is no failure, and is an argument in our favor. Not only so, but in British India, where famine and starvation in former days pre- vailed because of the shortage in the production of the soil, since the reclamation of about 26,000,000 of aeres of land by the Government as a national project famine has been prevented, death from starva- tion has ceased, and 110,000,000 of its people are maintained from the production of the reclaimed land by the hand of the Government. This is the success recorded in history for that enterprise. The Governments of France, Spain, Algeria, Australia, Argentina, and Peru all bear the same testimony without a break on the same point. Therefore we see that in every instance when the work was taken in hand as a national enterprise if was a success, while on the other hand, when turned into the charge of the State, in every single instance it has proved a failure, and hence we fear the dangerous course wherein this all-important matter of reclaiming the public domain has so often heretofore fallen and foundered, and cling to that which has so often carried its followers into the haven of success. Another reason is that, in the event of the States and Territories being financially able to reclaim the lands, insuperable physicial bar- riers would be so prominently in the way that it could not be made practically effectual there. This would be due to the fact that all of the streams of any great mag- nitude in the West, and upon which the greatest irrigation schemes would necessarily depend for the reclamation of the greatest bodies of these arid lands, have their source in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. If these States should have the sovereign control of these lands in their boundaries they would necessarily have the water as well, and would, as a matter of sovereign right, have the control of it, and ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 79 would therefore be able to defy the law of prior appropriations as applied between individuals, and by diverting the head waters of those streams would have those States and Territories lying below them at their mercy. At least it would be so ina measure. To state these physical advantages in favor of those three sovereign communities is to argue the case on this point, in so far as I now have the time to advert to it on that point. Again, to ask this reclamation to be made by the General Govern- ment for the people of the West would be asking only fair and impar- tial treatment as between them and the people of the South and East and North. It would be asking no more for the benefit of agriculture in the West than the Government has done for the benefit of inland commerce in those sections just named. For the benefit of inland commerce in those sections the Government has appropriated from time to time as original expenditure, to say nothing of the cost of keeping up the various canals, ete., in which it had an interest, no less than $230,850,567.60, and, as before stated, none will deny that this was wisely ‘expended. These expenditures have been somewhat of a local nature too, rather than national, or for the national benefit. They were as follows—that is, there has been expended for inland commerce in the boundaries of the following States oe following: Algbamas 2.22.22. -4---- 764,191.19 | Mississippi. ..--......-- $2, 323, 856. 10 IATKANSAS 22 2.62 ee a54 arr 910.28 | New Hampshire.... ..-. 434, 930. 36 Galitormiai.--. see 4, 181, 251.78 | New Jersey _......---- 2, 068, O87. 26 Connecticut_..___-_-.--- 2,696, 545.19 | New York _....__.----. 17, 495. 321. 60 WolaweavOs-- 2-35 22 occn 3, 223,118.44 | North Carolina _.-...... 4,046. 935.07 District of Columbia -___. 240, OOOSOOR ONT Ot acess oo wees 2 741, 812. 37 UN (chute a ere © Gt), 000.058 \Oregon: <.0.ck dsces.nses 5, 264, 863. 66 Georeiae 6.2.2 Se 3, 882, 588.91 | Pennsylvania ......-.-- 2,451, 292. 25 WdanGvecee = 22: 15,000.00 | Rhode Island_........-. 1, 5388, 214. 00 HINO sic = ---..-. 4,948, 784.11 | South Carolina_......... 2,912, 679.90 LG GG WEE) of alee ae eee 1,869, 753.03 | Tennessee .--. - a> ee 670, O89. 85 NG Wes See 319, 563.37 | ‘Texas......-.< eee 6, 652, 697.16 GAT SS Beet ae eee ee 7 bOlaraa| MELMONG. 2.2 2.5552 cce< 767, 946. 84 LeU a 1 70D; 3 OO Vareinia,-. 52 .s.55c essen 3, 837, 643. 23 Louisiana. .__._. ___._.__. 9, 609, 451.85 | Washington _...__-__-- 534, 232. 28 INC VaY2 pall ees ee 2,483, 686.66 | Wisconsin. _... ...... 7,705,301.32 Maryland __...__..__--- 3,790, 876.83 | Miscellaneous expendi- Massachusetts __.._____- 4, 943, 767. 10 GHEOe eee et 188, 405, 189. 96 Michigan _._..__.._.---- 8,805, 167.81 ——= Minnesota a. 222 24. 2. , 771, 810. 46 | Wotal 3.2. 252.9230, 8502067660 Not only so, but in at least twenty States in the Union the Govern- ment has exercised the functions of a canal builder, not unwisely either, as before stated, and not in a single instance has it been done in any part of the vast arid West; and it has alsoall been done in the direct interest of commerce and not of agriculture. As evidence of this we submit the following statistics bearing on this subject: In the last fifty-three years Congress has expended in cleaning and improving harbors, building dams, canals, and the like work gener- ally $392,606,596.28. In 1896 alone for the same purpose $71,158,956.88 was expended. This was all for the benefit of commerce in the East. For canals and dams alone, for the benefit of commerce mainly, if not alone, the Government has made the following appropriations in the folowing-named States: Alabama.—Grant of 5 per cent net proceeds of public lands after 1819; sale of same for canal on Tennessee River, $10,000. Florida.—For the Peninsula Canal, $50,000. 80 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. Tllinois. —Lake Michigan and Mississippi River Canal, $200,000; Hennepin Canal, $50,000. Indiana.—Wabash River Dam and Canal, $65,000; Lake Erieand Wabash River Canal, $15,000; Ohio v. land grant of 2} sections on each side of all canals. Towa.—Canal from Red River to Mississippi, $1,500; Des Moines Rapids Canal, $733,750; Sault Ste. Marie Canal, $65,000. RKRentucky.—Louisville and Portland Canal, purchase of 1,000 shares of stock of the private corporation organizel to buid it, Value, $100,000. Subsequent pur- chase and maintenance of the same, $825,000. Ohio.—Ohio River Falls Canal, $90,000; Cumberland River Canal, $10,000; Rough River Canal, $25,000; Zanesville and Taylorville Canal, $102,000, Louisiana.—New Orleans Outlet Canal and Clarenton Canal, $150,000. Mississippi.—Carondelet Canal, $25,000; canal from Mississippi to Gulf of Mex- ico, $75,000; also 6 per cent net proceeds of all public-land sales for canal purposes. Michigan.—Grant of 300,000 acres of land to build canal between Lake Superior and Lac La Belle; St. Clair Canal, $1,095,250; Secretary of War authorized to draw for annual expenses for maintaining the canal; St. Mary’s Canal, $850,000; Secre- tary of War authorized to draw for annual expenses in maintaining the canal. New Jersey.—Ship canal across Bergen Neck, $150,000. Oregon.—Cascade Canal, $1,728,000. Pennsylvania.—Surveys for ship canal from Allegheny to the sea, $200,000; pur- chase of Monongahela Canal and improvements of the same, $358,733. South Carolina.—Purchase of 800 shares of Dismal Swamp Canal Company’s stock; Santee Canal, $39,000. Tennessee.—Tennessee River Canal, $250,000. Tevas.—Galveston and Brazos River Canal, $25.000. Virginia.—Purchase of 750 shares of Chesapeake Canal Stock Company’s stock; purchase of 10,000 shares of Chesapeake and Ohio Company’s stock; Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, $20,000; survey canal Chesapeake Bay to Charleston, $10,000. Washington.—Survey canal Lake Union to Puget Sound, $10,000. Survey canal Bakers Bay and Shoalwater Bay, $10,500. Wisconsin. —Fox River and Wisconsin River Canal, 14 sections of land on each side of Fox River, $25,000; Milwaukee and Rock River Canal, 5 per cent of net proceeds of public land sales, $146,000; Wisconsin River Canal, $10,000; Green Bay and Lake Michigan Canal, grant of 200,000 acres. Purchase of portage of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior Canal, $350,000; improving same, $20,000. To this much we refer to show what the Government has done for the benefit of inland commerce in the sections of country before named, and that the Government has wisely done it as a national work we are here to assert. But while we do, we further assert that, as a work of the General Gevernment, between the construction of a reservoir for the encouragement of inland commerce and the con- struction of one for agriculture, there is practically no difference; and if there is, then the argument is in favor of the latter. To ask for this reclamation of the arid lands of the West by the General Goverment for the benefit of agriculture in this great West- ern country is only to ask that fair play and even-handed justice be done between the different sections of this great country. It is but an appeal to the magnanimity of the General Government. From May, 1875, to June 30, 1896, the Government received from the sale of publie lands, chiefly from the West, $336,552,120.20, which was expended in Eastern improvements. Scarcely a dollar was ever returned for any Eastern improvement or benefit. This great Government can not afford to stain its name with par- tiality so great as to refuse to add its aid to that vast section in the West for the benefit of agriculture when it has done so much for commercial classes and commercial sections in other parts of the country. Indeed, my people do not expect it. They believe that this great country, whose bosom but a short time ago was trodden by the hoof of war, that passed from under it and through the greatest war ever known to civilization, and did it successfully, and did it without ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 81 the confiscation of a single estate or the execution of a single politi- cal offender, can never be so unfair. Mr. BARHAM. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mondell would like to have a few moments to continue his remarks. STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK W. MONDELL, OF WYOMING. Mr. CHAIRMAN: The committee very kindly gave me some time the other day, and before I had concluded the hour of 12 had arrived, and it was suggested that I should conclude to-day. I will take but a short time, as Mr. Mead, the irrigation expert from the Depart- ment of Agriculture, is here, and I know you will be glad to hear from him, he having been invited by Mr. Wilson and the committee, I hope I made my position on some phases of the questions of national aid to irrigation development clear the other day, and I shall not go into that matter to-day except to reiterate briefly that it seems to me that the work which the National Government should under- take in the interest of irrigation is the work suggested by the resolu- tions of the Irrigation Congress last year. That is the work of con- servation—of making the waters of the arid regions available for irri- gation and does not contemplate the Government’s actually reclaiming lands. The distribution of water in irrigation is a local enterprise and may be left to individual enterprise to carry out. On the other hand, the work of making available the waters which the Almighty has pro- vided in the arid regions which are now available only to the extent of a very small proportion of their entire volume, owing to the fact that they rush down in flood periods and not uniformly during the irrigation season, is a public work. I believe we are more likely to get Government aid by confining our efforts, as suggested by the National Irrigation Congress, to appropriations for conservation projects—conservation projects in the nature of storage reservoirs at the head waters of streams to store flood waters, to be ‘turned loose in the latter portion of the irrigation season to make up for the deficieney in flow, and conservation pro- jects where the proposition is to take waters of a great stream in the watershed of which there is no irrigable land and divert it to the watershed of another stream where there is irrigable land. Also those projects where streams, lying in deep canyons, would require divert- ing canals of great length and at great cost to bring the water to the surface, to place it in the same position that nature placed the water of those streams that flow near the surface. In brief, the work which the Government should undertake is that of making available all of the water in the arid regions for irrigation purposes. Mr. REEDER. When the Government has made this available by your plan, does your bill propose a plan as to who shall then deter- mine how the water shall be devoted? Mr. MONDELL. I will say to the gentleman that every State in the arid region has a code of laws and | “customs relative to the diversion and use of waters, and under these laws and customs all waters used in irrigation in the arid region must be diverted and applied. The National Government can not attempt to interfere with those laws and customs without endless confusion. I think the Government aid should begin with the work of a purely national character, and end where you have placed the waters where private enterprise can divert and distribute them; and my idea is that in doing this the Govern 11196—01——6 . 82 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. ment should expect no direet return. If you had a specifie project before you, where it seemed that there was an opportunity to secure a return, I do not know that there would be any objection to an attempt to do that, but I have some doubts of the feasibility of the Govern- ment’s securing a full reimbursement, except it shall collect the same through the medium of the States by a charge for the use of the waters made available in addition of course to whatever nominal charge the Government might make for publie lands under its project. It nar- rows the scope of Government aid and the possibility of Government expenditure tremendously to say that it shall begin and end with stor- age and large stream diversion. Instead, then, of it being a question whether the Government shall actually aid in the irrigation of per- haps 75,000,000 acres at a considerable cost per acre, the problem is simply one of making available for use in irrigation the waters of the arid regions. This isthe work which private enterprise can not under- take and which the States ean not so well undertake as the National Government, because in nearly all of these enterprises there are inter- state questions. The bill (H. R. 15993) which T introduced on this subject, after dedi- cating the proceeds from the sales of publie lands to the aid of irriga- tion, provided for a fulland comprehensive report from the Geological Survey, to be made to Congress next winter, as to the general subject, and report of the detailed survey and examination of at least one project for the conservation or development of water in each arid and semiarid State, to be presented to the Congress as a basis of legisla- tion as the reports of the Chief of Engineers are presented to Congress for the use of the River and Harbor Committee at the beginning of each Congress. I think that the suggestion of Mr. Newlands that the public-lands fund shall in the future be dedicated to the cause of irrigation a wise one. He dedicates it in his bill to the irrigation of arid lands; I dedicate it in mine to works for making the waters of the arid region available for irrigation. Mr. WILSON, of Idaho. It has been dedicated two or three times before, and any part that still remains, I am afraid, is so limited that little can be accomplished. The CHAIRMAN. There is this to be said in favor of this idea, as it impresses me: Supposing it were possible—which of course it is not— that this entire 75,000,000 aeres of redeemable land could be redeemed at onee; of course one result would be that, instead of the agricultural lands of the United States being lifted in value, that they would, as amatter of facet, be decreased in value. These lands are to be reclaimed as the country needs them. The proposed bill introduces a system of putting the public-lands fund to this purpose; you go faster as you need it, and you will slack up as you need it. It is going to be diffi- cult to get the farmers in my section of Oregon to approve of any scheme that will put down the value of lands; but this is a safety valve, and as you need it the fund will expand, and then as you do not need them it will contract. I am much pleased with the sug- gestion. Mr. NEWLANDS. You could provide that a certain price per acre should be demanded. I wish to say another thing with reference to the charges against this fund. It is true, as I understand it, that when agricultural colleges were started in this country that the appro- priations were made for them out of the public-lands fund, and that fund was charged with that obligation; but it has long since been ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 83> relieved of it. The appropriations now made for the agricultural col- leges are a part of the agricultural bill of the House. Mr. MONDELL. The bill referred to would utilize the fund, whatever sum there might be in it, and provides for surveys and a report to Congress next January, in order that the Congress may have before it a general statement of the entire matter and at least one conservation project in each State and Territory in the arid and semiarid region. The CHAIRMAN. Let me see if I can understand your idea. You propose to build dams merely by the Government, and there is to be no charge upon any lands for that. How do you propose to distribute the water—metrely to pass it down the streams in some 1 regular way by the Government, or do you propose to have ditches and draw it direct from the dam; and if so, if it is to be drawn from the dams, in what way is it to be done? Mr. MONDELL. My idea is that conservation works should be under- taken as public works on internal improvement, and when the water is conserved it should be turned loose at the proper time to supple- ment the waning flow of the streams. The question of the distribution of the water, taking it out of the streams, and the use of it, are to be left entirely as they are now, to State laws and State customs. The States have an elaborate system of laws and customs and regulations on this subject which are being perfected every year, and the States are well qualified, in my opinion, to handle the question of the distribution of the water. I referred the other day to the Carey Act, which I consider a valua- ble auxiliary to this movement. Under that act projects of diversion and distribution too large to be undertaken by individuals holding lands under the desert-land law, can be successfully carried out under contract with the State, to reclaim large areas which are w holly public lands where the initial cost of diversion is so great that an individual or small neighborhood of people could not divert it them- selves. Beginning at the genesis of irrigation, then, the ordinary diversion and distribution is s accomplished by the individual, the asso- ciation of farmers and others; the larger diversions and distributions, where the problem is one of irrigation only of publie lands, ean be undertaken under the Carey Act; and then you come to the problems of conservation and the diversion of great streams to foreign water- sheds or from deep canyons, and these are, in my opinion, works whieh must be accomplished through public agencies, preferably the nation, because in nearly all of these propositions there are interstate questions involved. ‘The State of Nevada could not well go into California and impound the waters of Lake Tahoe, and it is necessary to impound those waters to make available a great river in that State, and so that is properly a National and not a State work. Even if it were practica- ble to construct and manage large storage systems by private enter- prise, they should not be so managed because a system of storage reservoirs at the head of a stream is such an important factor in the flow of the stream during the entire season, and so intimately affects all users of water along the stream, that they should be at all times under public control and never under private control. We can defend our advoeacy of national aid in this class of work because it is national; it is publie in its character and it does not directly reclaim any man’s land. It can not be said that it is an expenditure of the proceeds of the sale of public lands to irrigate Jones’s land, or Smith’s land, or Brown’s land, because it does not make it any cheaper s4 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. for Smith, or Jones, or Brown to irrigate their lands than it would have been for them if nature, instead of sending those waters down in tremendous volumes in the early spring and then reducing the flow later, sent the streams down in a steady and continuous flow. The Government would simply undertake the work of reetifying nature’s work, as we rectify nature’s work when we remove sand bars from the mouths of rivers and harbors, when we take shoals out of interstate streams. Wedo not in river and harbor work build the wharves on the banks or provide the anchorages, but we rectify the work of nature by making the waterways available for commerce; and we now ask the Government to rectify the work of nature in the arid regions to the extent of making available for use in irrigation the waters which are now valueless by reason of their uneven and uncer- tain flow. I believe that individuals and associations under the State ean then attend to the work of distribution of water over the lands, and if the Government works stop at conservation, then there is no possible conflict between the State and the National Government. Mr. BARHAM. As IT understand vour proposition, you take a stream, for instance, that you could not irrigate unless you conserved or res- ervoired the waters up in the mountains. Take Clear Lake. That is partly in my district. Now, if you only conserve the waters to come down Cache Creek, it would be of little or no benefit at all; but you have got to conserve the waters or reservoir them in such a manner as to carry them out at an elevation above where you could carry them out on the stream now and reservoir the waters at a point in the mountains, in the canyon. Your proposition is simply to build a dam at a point on Cache Creek, say, or at the mouth of Clear Lake, and back up the water, catch the waters, and then let the State attend to the balance of it, about digging the canals and carrying it through the valley? ¥ Here comes the Cache Creek through a deep canyon, and reaches the valley. Now, where we use that water at all, it is way down where the river can be diverted or is diverted. If you hold more water up here and eateh it in the lake, you want to start that canal or river 100 miles above where you use the river. In that case you would let the State or corporation attend to it? Mr. MONDELL. I shall try to confine Government aid to such works as are necessary to make the water available for irrigation. Mr. NEWLANDs. But your idea also, I think, as I have heard you state it, covers, if necessary, carrying the water from the storage reseryoirs over intervening mountains, and so forth, to the point where private enterprise can take hold of it? Mr. MONDELL. Yes, if that were necessary to make the stored water availabie; but Ihave not in mind any case where you would take stored waters across a divide. Mr. NEWLANDS. I know of such a case. Mr. BARHAM. That very case that I illustrated; I know of a dozen of them. Mr. MONDELL. That would then be part of the work necessary to make water available for distribution under State laws by private enterprise. Mr. NEWLANDs. Your plan then would include the canal that is necessary to carry it to the point where private enterprise would take it? Mr. MONDELL. My plan includes anything necessary to make water available, and nothing for the actual distribution of water over lands. ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 85 There is a variety of projects that could be taken up besides storage reservoirs; the simplest are diversions of great rivers like the Colo- rado or the Green, where there is a surplus of water above the needs of its own watershed, carrying it into another drainage where there is little water but plenty of irrigable land. Such a diversion by the Government does not of course irrigate the land; it simply makes it possible for private enterprise to undertake the work of applying the water to the land. . STATEMENT OF HON. F. G. NEWLANDS, OF NEVADA. Mr. NEWLANDS. Mr. Elwood Mead is here as an expert in these matters. Before he speaks I would like to state briefly my two bills, so that Mr. Mead can address himself to them. We all agree in the West that irrigation is a public use, just as navigation is; that the maintaining and sustaining an equal flow in the river is just as much of a public work as river and harbor improve- ments for the promotion of navigation or commerce. We would all be very glad to see the Government undertake that work of the stor- age of water in our rivers and the maintenance of an equal and sus- tained flow without hope of compensation, and I have shaped a bill in reference to that; and I have also shaped a bill which sets aside the receipts from the public lands as a fund for the reclamation of the publie lands of the West, which offers an automatic plan by which the West will reclaim itself through the agency of the General Government. Now, as to the first bill (H. R. 14072). Lintroduced that bill yester- day. It takes six projects which the Geological Survey has examined. That is the first one I would advocate. It pertains to the projects which the Geological Survey has examined and upon which it has made detailed reports, showing the reservoirs to be constructed, the eost of construction, and, incidentally, the area to be benefited by the improvement. One of these is in Arizona—the San Carlos—at a total cost of $1,000,000. Four in California—one, the construction of the Hetch Hetehy reservoir, which will cost $607,000; another, the Clark Valley reservoir, which will cost $2,000,000; and another work in Clark Valley, which is auxiliary to the other, which will cost $2,100,000; Stony Creek reservoir, $287, 01 10; the Clear Lake reservoir, $452,000. Then comes Montana, with the diversion of the St. Mary River into Milk River, costing, for the first 9 miles out of 16 miles, $325,000. Then three Nevada enterprises—one, the Rock Creek reservoir, tributary to the Humboldt, $62,300; another, the Lower Humboldt reservoir, $148,300; another, the Truckee River, costing $389,000. Then comes Wyoming, with the Grey Bull reservoir, $49,962. Making in all $6,327,000, with the total capacity, in acre- feet, of 1,415,000. That is to 8 say, the water stored in all these reser- voirs will cover 1,415,000 acres with water 1 foot deep, and, assuming that that water is directly applied to land and that it requires 2 feet to the acre, it would irrigate about 700,000 acres; and the total cost per acre-foot is $4.47. That applies simply to the storage and the canals that are necessary to make the storage of waters available, and not to the diverting ditches and subditehes that are necessary to irri- gate the land. Mr. BARHAM. Upon all those projects we have detailed and specific reports and estimates? S6 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. Mr. NEWLANDS. You have; by the Geological Survey. Mr. Witson, of Idaho. Do you not think it would be wiser to divide this up among the different States, following, by analogy, the course of the river and harbor bill? Mr. NEWLANDS. I have patterned the bill upon the river and har- bor bill, which takes first the projects upon which plans and estimates have been perfected. It considers, first, the Territory of Arizona, and appropriates $150,000 toward the construction of the San Carlos dam. That, of course, will be followed up by later appropriations. Then in California it divides among three reservoirs there $150,Q000— 850,000 each. It gives $150,000 toward the project proposed in Mon- tana. It gives Nevada for its three or four enterprises $150,000 in all, applying $30,000 to the Rock Creek reservoir, 840,000 to the Hum- boldt River reservoir, and S80,000 to the Truekee River reservoirs. And in Wyoming it gives the entire amount asked for—s40,000. In all the other States and Territories named here $150,000 each. Then it takes up the question of the surveys in each State and Territory in the arid and semiarid region— Arizona, California, Colorado—and, acting upon the suggestion of the Geological Survey, it specifies the particular projects for which plans, surveys, and estimates are required, and makes an appropriation for each one of these States and Territories, aggregating from 810,000 to 825,000 in each, aeecord- ing to the recommendation of the Geological Survey, and it also pro- vides for the test wells in the artesian-well districts. Every one of these sixteen arid and semiarid States is covered by appropriations for surveys, and plans and estimates, aggregating about $250, a and the complet ted projects—that is, the projects completed so far plans and estimates are concerned—earry a total appropriation of about S650,000, Now, I would be very glad to,see that bill passed, but I do not believe in the present temper of Congress it will pass, and I think it will take years for us to educate public sentiment to a point where it will pass. If we wait long enough I have no doubt it will come, but in the meanwhile we have reached insuch States as Nevada the abso- lute limit of development, unless the flow of these rivers is maintained. And so far as we are concerned, we would rather enter now upon a work of reclamation which involves a restoration to this fund of the cost of reclamation than await the possible advantages of a bill mod- eled after the river and harbor bill in four or five years. Now comes the second bill (H.R. 14088), which was my first. I have only introduced this other bill (IIT. R. 14072) with reference to the river and harbor bill to meet the objections of Mr. Mondell, and, I believe, the partial objections of Mr. Mead. I should be very glad to see it pass; but IT understand that Mr. Mondell comes in to-day; and I am very glad he accepts the idea of this reclamation fund; that all he claims is that the fund derived from the sales of public lands shall be apphed, not to the reclamation of public lands, but simply to the conservation of the waters; and [I will speak of that in a few moments. This bill of mine (H. R. 14088) provides, first, that all moneys raised from the sale of publie lands in sixteen States and Territories (naming them) shall be set aside for the creation of a special fund, to be ealled the ‘‘Arid-land reclamation fund,” whieh is to be used for the construction of reservoirs and other hydraulic works for the storage and diversion of water for the irrigation and reclaiming of arid lands. In the first place, what will be the size of that fund? In 1893 the sales. from public lands were only about $900,000, They have increased. ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 87 since, until last year they were nearly $3,000,000. Those extraordi- nary receipts, I am told, arise largely from the commutation of home- steads in Oklahoma. Under the homestead law a man ean settle and maintain his home for five years and get title, but he can, if he chooses, at the expire ation of fourteen months commute that by the payment of $1.25 per acre; and many of these men who get productive farms are glad to get titles in that way, and they make ‘the money, or get it, and ‘settle up with the Government, and I believe we will alw ays have very large receipts from the homestead act, although its purpose was to give free homes. Now, as to the charges upon that fund. It is true that when these appropriations were made to agricultural colleges that they were made a charge upon the public- -land fund, but long since that has been abandoned and these appropriations are part of the regular appro- priation bill. I insist upon it that all the proceeds from the sales of public lands should go into this fund, and if there is any question about it that we should relieve the fund of that charge. It is true that in this bill I provided ‘‘ that all public lands, except- ing those set aside by law for educational purposes,” ete.—I believe there are 5 or 10 per cent going to different States for schools, ete., and that is intended to cover that. As to the method of making this fund useful in the storage of water and the reclamation of publie lands, section 2 gives the Director of the Geological Survey the power to go along and make investiga- tions and reports, estimates and plans, both with reference to the storage of water and the supply of water through artesian wells, and also the diversion of streams into valleys that are not subject to them. The third provides for the reports; the fourth provides that upon the filing of the reports the Secretary of the Interior may withdraw from public entry the lands which are required for reservoir or hydraulic purpose, or otherwise they would be taken up by specula- tors, and it also provides that lands subject to speculative schemes shall be withdrawn, so thereafter they will be subject to the advan- tages of reclamation schemes, so they can not be taken in large areas, and thus defeat the purpose of this act, which is to make homes for people in areas not exceeding 80 acres. The fourth section provides that upon the determination of the Secretary of the Interior that a project is practicable, that then he can let contracts, but the limit of his authority is the fund in the Treasury. He can not exceed that. It also provides that after the letting of a contract no entries shall be made for more than 80 acres; that the Secretary of the Interior may, in his discretion, further limit the number of acres in each entry. For instance, if there is a project presented as to the lands capable of this intense cultivation, to which the gentleman from Arizona has alluded, then the Secretary of the Interior may provide a smaller unit of entry, thus increasing the num- ber of homes that can be created by a common project. Now, I come to the vital position, and I have endeavored to modify that in order to meet the views of Mr. Mead, which he expressed with great force and clearness in the hearing before the Committee on Public Lands. Section 6 provides ‘‘that upon the completion of each storage or irrigation project the total cost thereof shall be ascertained and the Secretary of the Interior shall prescribe such rules and regu- lations as to the price of the lands entered or to be entered and the right to use the water provided by such work as shall restore to the arid-land reclamation fund the amount expended therefor, in ten annual installments, and shall also make good to such arid-land reela- 8 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. la mation fund the expenses of administration connected with such work: Provided further, That the right to the use of the water shall be perpetually appurtenant to the land irrigated, and beneficial use shall be the basis, the measure, and the limit of the right.” That, you see, does not compel the Secretary of the Interior anywhere to enter upon the work of reclamation of the lands themselves. Per- haps the bill is sufficiently broad to enable him to do it, but it does not compel him to do it. He can limit his work absolutely to the storage of water or to the construction of a canal that will carry the stored water, as Mr. Mondell suggests, to some point where private enterprise can take the matter up, and it provides an elastic method of compensation. The method can be either by increasing the price of the land or by a charge for the use of the water, and that charge can be, according to his judgment and discretion, by the acre-foot, as Mr. Mead suggests, or he ean attach a water 1 ight to the land itself. The endeavor has been to make that so elastic that the Secretary of the Interior, with the aid of the Geological Survey and the experts of the Government—the Agricultural Department and the Interior Department are in absolute. harmony upon these questions; they are acting in absolute harmony to-day upon the forestry question, and doubtless are on the irrigation question—that the Secretary of the Interior, with reference to each project, can devise rules and regula- tions for that project that will work out the greatest good to the oreat- est number and at the same time retain this fund inviolate for the reclamation of other lands. The bill provides: That in case the water thus provided shall be more than sufficient for the recla- mation of the public lands, or if land in private ownership has been found by the survey above authorized to be better suited for the utilization of the stored or divided waters, or if there is a sufficiency of both, then the right to use such water may be sold at rates and on terms to be fixed by the Secr etary of the Interior, but no water right shall be sold to any landowner or occupant for an amount exceed- ing 80 acres. The purpose there, as far as entry is concerned, is to permit the occupation of lands, and the purpose, so far as giving the right to use water is concerned, is to prevent the monopoly of lands. As it is in the West, through unwise land laws, we have great land monopolies, in some cases as many as several hundred thousand acres being under one ownership. I think Mr. Maxwell alluded to a case where vou can travel on one man’s land for 100 miles. So that the purpose is not to allow the man who wants to monopolize land to get the benefit of that, but make it to his interest to divide up his land into 80-aere tracts for these grantees and then obtain these rights. It works no injury to the landowner. He is not deprived of any vested right, but it will be to his interest to divide up his land and to sell it. These are the provisions of the bill. I will be glad to answer ques- tions regarding it at any other time, but as Mr. Mead’s time is limited I will now yield to him. STATEMENT OF ELWOOD MEAD, IRRIGATION EXPERT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. _ Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the situation which irrigation has ‘ached in the West seems to be something like this: That this mat- res was originally left to private enterprise, and the pioneers of irriga- tion selected the best localities, and in doing so were able to take ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 89 water direct from streams at very little more expense than is now required to take water from main canals, simply because of the favor- ing conditions After the most favorable opportunites had been reached, then private enterprise attempted reclamation on a larger seale. But the experience of recent years has been that those large enterprises—the aggregation of capital, or by partnership or corpora- tions—are unprofitable. So we have practically reached the end of unaided development. We have been helped, in a measure. Mr. Ray. If that is true, that these private enterprises which have been at liberty to select the most favorable conditions have not been able to find it profitable, is not that proof conclusive that it would be unprofitable and unremunerative to the Government of the United States to enter into that work on that line, upon the sale of lands at increased prices for remuneration? Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir; if you simply take the money received; but the Government is in a different position from private capital. Private capital derives no benefit whatever from the increase, and in productive and taxable wealth the Government derives a large benefit from the population of the country that is now arid and deserted. Mr. WiLson, of Idaho. Another suggestion there. The Govern- ment would derive a substantial benefit, financially speaking, indi- rectly in the sale of its lands, while the private individual would receive nothing except for the use of the water. That is, if the Gov- ernment, by conservation, paves the way for the sale of 75,000,000 acres of land that can be reclaimed, the Government would receive something from the sale of that 75,000,000 aeres which it would not if they were left sterile and EHebaN iit d, as the case would be if we do not reclaim. So the Government would get some direct Ccompensa- tion for the increased sale of land in addition to the indirect advantages resulting in the devolopment of the country. Mr. MEAD. The Government would receive certain benefits, as has been stated, from the sale of the lands from which private capital derives no benefit whatever. I do not want to discuss this as a money- making enterprise; I am not discussing it on that basis at all. We have substantially reached the condition I have stated, so far as development by private enterprise is concerned; yet we have a very large area of publie lands yet unreclaimed and practically valueless in its present condition, and many of the largest rivers are going to waste substantially undiminished. That is a tax on transportation, it is a tax on commerce, it isa tax on the development of the East, which would be largely removed if you could people that country. Those are certain benefits that will be derived by settlement that are matters for the nation to consider. Now, if it is simply a question of bringing public lands into the market, if we are to consider first of all the bringing of public lands into the market and the reclamation of public lands at the least cost, in my judgment the place to begin would be to take these large rivers that are now running to waste. The reason they have not been used is because the expense of constructing dams is so great that there is no hope of any return from the original outlay. If you bring those rivers to the surface of the ground, as the small streams exist—the streams that were utilized by the original settler— then settlers will be willing to dig out canals on the same terms as were done, and will be able to do it; that is, if you build these diver- sion works without hope of return. You can bring more land into use by building dams in the Missouri and the Colorado, the Snake and 90 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. the Green rivers, more public lands, and more private lands, possi- bly new lands, than you can by any system of reservoirs, no matter what its cost. Western development, unrestricted development, has brought about a condition of affairs that makes reservoirs of immense importance. That condition of affairs is, that the variations in the flow of Western streams do not accord with the needs of irrigation. Streams rise before irrigators need the water, and they escape before they can use it ben- eficially. In many places streams are torrential in character, so that storage is an indispensable requisite to the utilization of the stream. On these streams, where there are early floods, where the opportuni- ties for diversion have been such as to permit the construction of pri- vate canals, more canals have been built than there is water to fill them at the time it is needed. There is more land under cultivation than can be profitably cultivated, which creates a condition of very serious distress in many loealities, and a very serious waste in many others. Let me illustrate that. The investigations made by the Depart- ment of Agriculture show that the demands of crops in June and July are practically uniform. On many streams there is not 5 per cent of the water in July that there is in June, so if you could only hold back the water that goes to waste one month ‘and use it the next month you could double and treble and quadruple the acreage of land which it is impossible to successfully reclaim where you ‘have to depend entirely on the natural flow. Let us take the case of the Rio Grande, which carries 6,000 eubie feet per second in May. The flow drops down to only 2,000 cubic feet per second in July. Now, the needs of July are just as great as the needs of May, or even greater. Take another case, where the May and June discharge is from 12,000 to 17,000 cubie feet per second, dropping down below 2 nae feet in July—only one-eighth as much water in the stream in July a there is in June. Now, that condition of affairs has resulted in this: People seeing an immense volume of water running to waste in June, Eastern eapi- tal has been invested to make use of it, not realizing that it is not the flood discharge that measures the success of irrigation, but the low- water discharge, so that we have scores and hundreds of canals and thousands of farms where each year there is a shortage of water, a greater or less loss of crops, and a great waste and an injurious use of water because of it. Let me illustrate that by the condition of affairs in the Salt River Valley. In the Salt River Valley in Arizona it is known that practically all the canals will have a short water supply in August. The result is that they pour all the water they ‘an get into the soil early in the season, so as to create, as far as pos- sible, a sort of a local reservoir in their own land; but that is injurious to the land; it is a waste of the use of water if you are not in a posi- tion to use it to the best advantage. It does not produce the results, and then oceasionally the shortage reaches a point where even that sort of treatment does not prevent a loss of crops. Now, if you have to subject yourself to the same vicissitudes of drought in an irrigated region that you have to where you depend on the clouds, so that the man having the ditches is just as subject to a loss of crops as the man who depends on the skies, irrigation can not maintain itself in competition with agriculture that depends on the rain, where your moisture is supplied free of cost. The very foun- dation of success in irrigation is that you shall have an ample water ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. Sl supply throughout the season. The great need of reservoirs to-day is to take these streams where private enterprise has already built diversion works and where settlers are struggling to maintain them- selves, and put them in a position to be profitable and prosperous. That means you are not to build ditches on streams, you are to build reservoirs on streams where the ditches are already in existence, where a system is already in operation. Mr. MONDELL. In most instances that would also result in a com- piete system of storage. Most any stream in the United States has enough water for new lands? Mr. MEAD. Yes; let us take this case. Practically all the land that ean be practically brought under cultivation to-day on the North Platte is the land that they ean depend on getting water from the remaining portion here. It does not make any difference how much runs to waste; it is not safe to attempt cultivation, because your crops will be started in the spring to be dried up in thesummer. Now, first supply the necessities of users and then the extent of further develop- ments will depend simply on the amount of storage you can provide for the interests of additional users, permitting a very much larger increased use of the early floods. Mr. WILSON, of Idaho. Would there ever be a possibility of ever storing a large per cent of that surplus water; could you give us some idea, for instance, on the North Platte there, how much of that sur- plus might be stored? Mr. MEAD. Each stream will depend on the opportunities for stor- ing. Those vary greatly. On some streams the opportunities will permit of a complete utilization of the entire flow. On other streams this will not be possible. There are streams where you could utilize the entire supply, and there are many other streams where the attempt to answer this question would be merely a case of lack of definite information as to the size of storage works. Mr. WILSON. It is hardly likely the flood waters of the Platte would be stored? Mr. MEAD. I think they could be; I think that is a stream that eould. I think the Snake River could by impounding in Jackson Hole. That of itself now serves as a sort of a reservoir. Mr. NEWLANDS. I wish to call your attention, Mr. Mead, to the fact that there is nothing to prevent the supply to existing ditches under this bill. Mr. MEAD. IT understand that; Iam simply explaining the situation. Mr. NEWLANDS. I would like to call your attention to one proposi- tion. Assuming that you start with this reclamation fund, and the reclamation of the West depends on keeping that fund good and even increasing it, how would you, if you simply turned the water into the streams, obtain an increase of that fund? Mr. MEAD. If you will permit me to complete the discussion I am making I will take that up later. The situation which confronts the Government in taking up this matter it seems to me is this: That you can not build dams in these great rivers and then let the people build the canals without any interference with local institutions. You would not expect to build a dam and get any revenue from it. These reservoirs will be located largely on streams where ditches are already in operation, where those ditches have certain rights under State laws, where there is a system of administration. In Colorado there are about 100 officers who raise and lower these head gates, so that the rights of the different proprietors of water under State laws are pro- 99 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. tected; in Wyoming abont 40 or 50; in Nebraska the same number or a less number. Now, if the Government builds storage works, just as it would build dams, just as they build docks as a means of regu- lating the flow of the stream and permitting a larger use, and make no attempt to charge, there comes no interference or conflict between what the Government is doing and what the State has already done; but if the Government makes the attempt to colleet revenue and derive a return from this water in order to market its goods and col- lect its rental, it must be in a position to protect that w ‘ater when it is turned into the channels of the natural streams, and that means they must have some authority to raise and lower those head gates in those streams. Mr. NEWLANDs. I will ask you where a private individual now stores water is there not a law in most of the States by which he can deliver that stored water at any point on the stream that he wishes? Mr. Meap. And compel the State officers to regulate the head gates in accordance with it? Mr. NEWLANDs. I do not know about the latter, but is there nota law which gives the man a right tostore water and the use of the river channel to carry it where he wishes? And if that were so, would not that law protect the United States, if it was the owner of the stored water, the same as it would protect an individual? Mr. MEAD. There is only one law. Mr. NEWLANDS. There is such a law in Nevada. Mr. MEAD. But Nevada has no officials to regulate the head gates. There is only one State that has; that is Colorado. To go back. I have no objection to the principle of rentals, no objeetion to that at all. I think it would be perfeetly proper if a State, considering water public property in a stream, should charge for it. Itis not the principle of rentals, but it is the question of work- ing out a system by which the Government will collect its rentals without interference or disturbance of existing State rights that needs to be brought to your attention and needs to be carefully considered in any legislation on this matter. Iam not saying that this can not be done, but Iam saying, and I want every member of this committee to regard that as an essential and important feature of this legislation, that you do not want to enter on this legislation without giving that matter careful consideration and working out some adequate and definite plan. Mr. MONDELL. That is, providing the committee proposes a charge? Mr. MEAD. Yes. Mr. NEWLANDs. Do you not think that things could be worked out by the Seeretary of the Interior, with the assistance of the Geological Survey and the Agricultural Department, better than Congress itself by vain and regulations? Mr. Mgkab. I think it ought to be worked out before any legislation is enacted, before you determine which of these two policies you adopt. Mr. Kina. Yet the ideal condition would be, in your opinion, would it not, that if the Government itself invests here for the purpose of creating these reservoirs and conserving the water, that they should get rid of the reservoirs as soon as possible—turn them over to State control or to private individuals? Mr. Mreapb. Yes; I think so; if satisfied that the States had enacted laws that would satisfy the Government. In this matter of rental I fully agree with the idea embodied in Mr. ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 93 Newlands’s bill. that the revenues arising by the provisions of this bill should go for the betterment of these States; that the disadvantages under which those people live, the drawbacks that nature has imposed on that country in this deficiency of moisture, entitle them to that consideration. They are entitled to it because the conditions of many of those States make aid of that kind necessary. The facts pointed out by the gentleman who spoke first, that Arizona has 54,000,000 acres of public lands and that these other States all have somewhere near like amounts, entitle those States to be benefited as far as possible by the transactions of the Government in public lands; because the State derives nothing whatever in the way of rentals and taxes from those public lands; they have to administer law and order, to maintain local self-government over empires in extent, the greater part of which belongs to the Government—a Goy- ernment that at the present time stands in the way of an alien land- lord, that makes no homes, and pays no taxes. That is a condition of affairs that makes me indorse thoroughly the idea that whatever revenues there are ought to go to the building of irrigation works for the development of that country and the transfer of them from public to private hands. Regarding revenues anywhere, to depend on the operation of the homestead law we can not expect any continuous revenue running over a long period of years—that is, any adequate revenue for the work before us; but there are between 300,000,000 and 400,000,000 acres of grazing ‘lands, lands that never will be susceptible of home- stead entry , that ean not be filed as homesteads now without a man perjures himself—because you ean not make a homestead out of them; in many cases a horned toad can not live on them in their present con- dition, and it would take a township to support a settler and his family. I do not believe that land is going to be left forever in its present con- dition, that everybody ean use as he pleases, because there will be certain things in the future that are going to make the range stockman and the settlers that use it now as a free common, demand some protection and some settled policy regarding its oce upation. If we begin the construction of irrigation works, even the crippled population it has will make the competition for that land so fierce that it is going to be a question of self-preservation and the maintenance of local peace that there be some provision dealing with the grazing lands as well as the other lands. Whatever is done, whether those lands are disposed of, whether they are leased, or whatever is done, every cent that comes fr om those should go into the irrigation fund. When you deal with that question you have opened up asource of revenue many times greater than anything we will get from the occupation of the land through the present land laws. So I believe for the next ten or fifteen years, even if we abandon the question of direct compensation, we would have a revenue large enough to enable the Government to carry on this development in a substantial measure from the proceeds of lands alone. (Thereupon, at 12 2 o’clock, the committee adjourned until 4 o’cloeck p. m.) WASHINGTON, D. C., Mebruary 7, 7901. The committee met at 4 o’clock p. m., Hon. Thomas H. Tongue in the chair. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Maxwell is here, and as Professor Mead has not come in we might listen to Mr. Maxwell. 94 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. STATEMENT OF GEORGE H. MAXWELL, CHAIRMAN OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF NATIONAL IRRIGATION ASSOCIATION. Mr. MAXWELL. I wish to speak of the Newlands bill, No. 14088. I think a good name for that bill would be to call it the ‘*‘omnibus bill.” As we came in, Mr. Chairman, you referred to this matter, and to the point that the Government had expended during a period of years a large amount of money for preliminary work along the lines of this ir rigation matter, and it is undoubtedly true that after fifteen or twenty years of Government investigation we are no further along than we were at the beginning, so far as the actual reclamation of the land is concerned. An immense fund of valuable information has been developed, and the time is ripe for action. Under this bill to which I refer, the Government can begin action immediately, and I believe along lines which remove every reasonable objection which has ever been raised to the Government undertaking the great work of bringing about the reclamation of the arid domain. The first point which it seems to me is important in favor of the Newlands bill is that under it everything can be done which is sug- gested to be done by each of the other bills now before this commit- tee. For instance, Mr. Wilson has a bill for the construction of the San Carlos reservoir in Arizona. There is also an item of appropria- tion in the Indian bill of 8100,000 to make further soundings to the bed rock and to segregate the land. If that item passes, that part is provided for, but if not, a reservoir could be built under the New- lands bill without any further legislation. Mr. Mondell has intro- duced a measure which provides that the fund derived from the sale of public lands may be used for the survey and construction of irri- gation works. As I understand, it is not contemplated in his idea, or bill, that any of the moneys expended should be returned, and his bill does not provide for any construction work, but merely for pre- liminary surveys. So that all that is provided for under Mr. Mondell’s bill ean be done under Mr. Newlands’s bill, No. 14088. Mr. MONDELL. My bill provides for a specific report, and of course any question as to what should be done—as to whether the Govern- ment should receive a return for its expenditures—would be a question whieh would be raised when the specific propositions came up. Mr. MAXWELL. That would require further Congressional action under your bill. Everything that can be done, practically, under your bill ean be done practically under Mr. Newlands’s bill without further legislation. The bill to which especially my attention has been called is one of Judge Barham’s, providing for the complete investigation and survey of the arid domain. That bill is a thor- oughly well-considered bill to the point to which it goes, but it does not go to the point of allowing construction to begin. Under the Newlands bill the surveys provided for by Mr. Barham’s bill can be made, and construetion can be begun. Mr. BARHAM. Is there a project now so completely examined and surveyed and estimated that the Secretary of the Interior could let a contract under this bill? Mr. NEWLANDs. I understand that complete plans and surveys have been made by the Geological Survey, and those plans and surveys are now printed in the reports of the Geological Survey. I will ask Mr. Newe a if that is not so. Mr. NEWELL. We have printed the plans and estimates for several ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 95 projects, two or three in Nevada and several in California; also the plans for the San Carlos dam, on Gila River, and those for the diver- sion of St. Mary River into the head of Milk River in Montana. These plans have been made for ascertaining the cost; for actual construe- tion additional details should be worked out. For example, in con- nection with the San Carlos dam, on Gila River, we should uneover the foundations in order to make additional drawings and _ specifica- tions. When we have investigated the conditions there and settled on the exact position, we will be ready to go further. Mr. MONDELL. You want to investigate there as to the exact loca- tion of the dam? Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir; it isa question of a few feet up or down the river. Mr. BARHAM. The plans and specifications are not complete? Mr. NEWELL. The $100,000 item which has just been passed for that purpose by the Senate in the Indian bill provides several things: To continue the investigation as to particular details, to acquire the dam site, and to ascertain what the benefits will be, as well as the cost, and to lay the scheme out in all its relations to development of that part of the country. Mr. MAXWELL. What I intended to say was that under this bill which I have before me, Mr. Newlands’s bill, a report would be required to the Secretary of the Interior, with a complete plan, estimate, and survey, upon which he would determine whether he would order con- struction. Isuppose that in making reports of that kind, any surveys heretofore made by the departments could be utilized without the necessity of doing new work. In the bill there is, first, the provision for setting aside the fund; second, the provision for pr ‘eliminar y surveys, plans, and estimates of cost; third, for the making of a report, through the Secretary of the Interior, showing all the details in reference to the proposition; fourth, the power vested in the Secretary of the Interior to order the con- struction of certain works upon certain conditions, one of which is that no contract shall be let until the necessary funds are available. Another is that where lands are to be irrigated under any one of these systems, such lands shall be withdrawn from all other entry except entry under the homestead act, the idea being that in the absence of such provision the speculators would immediately jump in and locate serip or make some other sort of speculative entries, which is against the policy of this legislation, its object being really to create homes on the public domain, and to settle it. The act provides that where the construction is ordered the cost of the work shall return to the Treasury through the funds derived from the use of the water. This would make a charge upon the land. The great advantage of this bill is that there is not a section in the West, from Arizona to Idaho, and California, and Nebraska, whose needs are not fully provided, with the single exception that where conditions exist under which it is not feasible for the Federal Goy- ernment to build the canals and reservoirs and get its money back from the use of the water, under those conditions a further applica- tion must be made to Congress. There is absolutely nothing which you must do to accomplish a reclamation of the arid lands, which ean and ought to be done by the Federal Government, that can not be done under this bill, with the exception of those projects in localities where the conditions are such that for some cause the Government can not build a reservoir and get its money back from the use of the 96 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. water. Itis hardly a just illustration with reference to the bill to take that condition as the only condition for consideration. There are a great multitude of places where the Federal Govern- ment can build reservoirs, and can build main-line canals, and can so connect the source and supply of the water with the lands on which it is to be used that there is no possibility of complication coming about. It permits the Geological Survey, which of all the depart- ments of the Government is the proper department to make these investigations, to make them. If the Survey finds that the Govern- ment can build a reservoir and canal to the Government lands, and possibly also to intervening private lands, and that the enterprise is practicable, it can so report, and if there is such a place as that the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to goahead. If the Geological Survey reports difficulties, by reason of ‘complications in regard to water rights, laws, or anything else, so that in that particular location the Federal Government could not get its money back, then an addi- tional application must be made to Congress. Mr. BARHAM. I wish you would explain to me the meaning of the sixth seetion of this bill, which says that ‘‘upon the completion of each storage or irrigation project the cost thereof shall be ascer- tained, and the See retary of the Interior shall prescribe such rules and regulations as to the prices of land ‘entered or to be entered’* and the right to the use of the water,” and so forth. Now, that contem- plates the use of the water oniy upon public lands, does it not? Mr. MAXWELL. I think not. ‘‘And the right to use the water pro- vided by such work ”—I think that is intended to cover both private and publie lands. Mr. BARHAM. How could you read it without ‘* entered or to be en- tered ”—to leave those out—and put the construction you had upon it? Mr. MAXWELL. If there is any ambiguity there it should be reme- died, because there are places, and many of them, where there are intervening private lands, and the private lands and Government lands are together, like the squares on a checkerboard, and unless you can provide ‘that the private land should have its share, and the Gov- ernment should have its share of the water, you would get into diffi- culties about the distribution of the water. Mr. NEWLANDS. Section 6 is intended to give to the Secretary of the Interior the power to make rules and regulations not only as to the prices of water but the prices of the land itself in case it should be regarded as advisable to put into the price of the land the cost of the enterprise, whatever it might be, so as to get the entire cost out by a reasonable price placed upon the land. ‘The words ‘‘ entered or to be entered” mean not only the entries to be made in the future as to the making of the contract, but the entries made from the filing of the report up to the beginning of the contract, for it is declar ed in the preceding section that all lands entered after the filing of the report are to be subject to the charges and rules made by this act. Mr. BARHAM. Subject to the entry of the land. What was in my mind po railroad land. Of course, we must treat that subject. Mr. NEWLANDS. This clause only applies to the price of the puble land. Tt is provided that the price for water for use on the railroad lands and other lands in private ownership shall be sufficient to repay the cost of conservation. Mr. MAXWELL. That isin clause 7. Between them it is provided that the right to use the water on the land is restricted to 80 acres that is, no one landowner can have more than 80 aeres. That is ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 97 intended to cover the conditions in Arizona to-day in the Salt River Valley, where settlers have gone in and taken up Government lands. Here will bea quarter section of Government land, and here is a quar- ter section which is settled, which has been taken up, the next is open. If it is possible for the Government to provide the water there and allow the settlers to have the water on their land as well as giving it to the Government land, it will not complicate matters at all. The advan- tage in this bill is shown in a place like the Salt River Valley in Ari- zona, taking the Tonto Basin as anexample. I use these examples to show that I am not theorizing. Suppose the Government should build the Tonto Basin reservoir. It will hold 800,000 acre-feet of water and it will irrigate a very considerable area of Government land, and also provide just what the people cultivating the little farms around Phoe- nix need to save them from dying out as they are doing now. They require a little water late in the season. The Geological Survey could go into that community, devise a plan whereby this water could be taken out and utilized by the community, and whieh would increase the area of the Government land irrigable and would turn the money received back into the reclamation fund. You could say to those people, ‘‘ Now, if you will make a proposition so that you can take this water from the Government as a cooperative scheme, or in any way that will avoid complication, we will build this reservoir.” There are hundreds of places in the West to-day where, if the Gov- ernment would indicate its willingness to supply water to settlers— and to-day they have no possibility of getting water from private enterprise—they would make any desired conditions in the way of shaping their claims to water rights and methods of distribution so as to relieve the Federal Government of every possible complication. These difficulties suggested here are the results of the work of the student in the closet. You ean go on the ground in every case and plan a way to avoid them. Mr. MONDELL. I would like to interrupt you there just a moment. I do not know that I am a student in a closet. My work has been in actual construction Mr. MAXWELL. It has been in Wyoming, Mr. Mondell. Mr. MONDELL. I don’t know—I have constructed irrigation canals personally in several States and Territories, and I do not think I have ever been a closet student of this subject. But referring to the matter you have just suggested there, if it is a fact that in the places you have just referred to there is no question about the return from the building of these reservoirs either to the Government or the indi- vidual building the reservoir, in a case of that kind there is nothing to prevent the individual from going ahead and building those reser- voirs and getting a return from them. Mr. MAXWELL. They have been trying for ten years to get private capital to build those reservoirs, and they have hoped against hope, and made trial after trial, for such a long time that they have now just about given up. Mr. MONDELL. Then, if private enterprise, after carefully consider- ing it, has given it up, that means that it is not feasible, and it can not be made to pay. Mr. MAXWELL. That is an important point and one which should be emphasized in this connection. Private capital can not conserve water so that it can be made to pay, and this is one of the strongest arguments why the Government must take up the matter. It is rec- 11196—O1 98 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. ognized by all that the water must be conserved; that the reservoirs must be built, and large streams diverted if we are to make available the fertile but arid lands. Private enterprise has already made the experiment and has demonstrated that it will not pay from a financial standpoint; that is, as regards immediate profits and interest on bonds and stock. The investor or speculator looks at these matters solely from the standpoint of profit, and not from that of the greatest good to the greatest number. If, for example, under a given project water can be conserved to supply 500,000 acres with a net profit of 5 per cent on the original investment, or a similar system will reclaim only 300,000 acres, but yield a profit of 8 per cent on the investment, the capitalist will not hesitate to adopt the latter, although by so doing 200,000 acres of good land are left sterile and opportunities for home-making on this land are forever destroyed. In the case of reclamation by the Government, however, the ques- tion of immediate profits and of a tempting interest return is not con- sidered. The matter of time, also, is not one always pressing; and if it is necessary to wait ten or even twenty years before all of the reclaimed land is disposed of, there is not the ever-threatening bank- ruptey, such as is involved in a speculative enterprise, where the lands or conserved waters are not disposed of at once. When a corporation has undertaken such work, the funds raised for preliminary surveys and investigations are expected to be refunded, with interest, from a time antedating the survey. In this way the money invested for construction must ultimately pay interest from a period preceding the laying of astone. If for any cause the work is delayed or the settlers become discouraged and do not take up the land rapidly, the interest charge, running day and night, increases the cost, and, as has been frequently the ease, the bondholders must step in and take the enterprise, reorganizing upon a different basis. These reorganizations are again dise -ouraging to the settler and involve additional expense, and so these enterprises, financially considered, have been failures, although of great benefit to the country when con- sidered from other standpoints. In the case of Government construction, the conditions are far more simple. They are along the line of ree laiming the largest possible area of arid land at a cost commensurate with the ultimate value of the reclaimed land, and with the probability of ultimate return of the cost without reference to interest on stock or bonds. If ten or even twenty years are required for the gradual settlement of the country and the disposal of the water, there is no anxiety nor loss, since expe- rience demonstrates that the conserved water and the reclaimed land is slowly but steadily attaining a higher and higher value. While the interest charges are not considered on the funds thus invested, yet the Government is by no means the loser, as the indirect gain through the increase of population and of taxable property far more than compensates for any interest charges. If a corporation could be put in the position of the Government, as the owner of vast quantities of land, with vital interest in the welfare and prosperity of the people, there could be no hesitation in consider- ing the reclamation of these lands as one of the best of business enter- prises; but with the existing condition of things under a democratic government the corporation can receive, not the multitude of indirect benefits, but only a profit along one narrow line. In the localities concerning which I have spoken they have been ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 99 trying for years to induce private capital to complete these reservoirs; but it is impossible to demonstrate how private capital can receive an adequate return for the risks involved. There is no class of property which is considered more uncertain than irrigation bonds and stock, owing to the gigantic frauds which have been perpetrated within recent years. Capital can not be induced to go into this work of conservation unless extraordinary profits can be show n, and these are not possible; even if they were, it would not be a matter of sound public policy to make of a publie utility of this kind a speculation such as would load down settlers with inflated debts. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Maxwell, are you going to remain in the city for some time? I ask because we have Mr. Mead here now, and it was our intention to hear from him to-day. Mr. MAXWELL. Certainly, if Mr. Mead is here I prefer to give way to him. STATEMENT OF ELWOOD MEAD, IRRIGATION EXPERT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. Mr. MEAD. I have no desire to say anything more than I have already said to-day. Mr. NEWLANDS. I suggest that it would be a more orderly proceed- ing to have Mr. Mead conelude his remarks, and then have Mr. Max- well take up the subject again. Mr. MEAD. I really have nothing further to say. Mr. NEWLANDS. Have you looked over this bill since our adjourn- ment? Mr. KinG. I would like to have Professor Mead discuss the best mode of reclaiming the arid land and at the least possible cost, and to have his opinion as to the most practicable and feasible scheme, and the one that will address itself to the judgment of Congress and be the best calculated to receive the support of the people who do not live in the West. Mr. MEAD. I should hesitate to undertake that without preparing for it. Itis a pretty big subject; I think it would take more time than I imagine the committee could devote to it this evening. I would be very elad to do that, but I should not want to undertake it and have to feel that I had dealt with it inadequately. Mr. KinG. I would like to ask you, do you think that a cession of all the arid lands in all of the States to the States would prove a solu- tion of this question? “Mr. MONDELL. Why not the mineral lands also? Mr. KinG. Well, we have here only jurisdiction of the public lands, and to open that subjeet would provoke a storm of controversy that is not necessary to be raised yet. Mr. MeaAp. I would answer that in this way, that I believe a prop- erly guarded cession, which would prevent an improper use of these lands, would serve the same purpose as national legislation, It would have to be properly guarded legislation; legislation that w ould provide for a cession in trust; and I would say further that no answer could be made that would not have to have some limitations. Mr. NEWLANDS. What limitations? Mr. MEAD. There are States in which a cession of the lands would answer every purpose. There are States in which irrigation is an important interest; there are States that have paid a great deal of attention to this matter and have laws for dealing with the matter. 100 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. A cession of lands to those States, I believe, would be the most effect- ive and the simplest solution of the question. There are other States where the irrigation is not of first importance that have no adequate irrigation laws, and where this interest would not receive proper con- sideration. A cession to those States without some adequate safe- guards would be improper. Mr. REEDER. Do you think there are any of these States that would handle the lands better than the Interior Department or the Govern- ment? Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir. Mr. REEDER. You think there are States that would handle the land to better advantage? Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir. Do not understand me to say that they would handle them more honestly. Mr. REEDER. They handle them more efficiently on account of their machinery? Mr. MEAD. They would handle them better. Mr. NEWLANDS. Take several cases in Nevada and California. Take the Truckee Valley and the Carson, where the lands irrigated _ are in Nevada and the storage sites are in California. Do you think a cession of those lands to Nevada would enable the State of Nevada to conduet the necessary operations to reclaim those lands? Mr. MEAD. Suppose the Government goes into California now and builds a reservoir, it will have to provide by legislation for the regu- lation of the streé um between those two States, and there will have to be legislation of that kind anyway, and it will require some additional logislation. Mr. NEWLANDS. There will be no regulation of the stream between those two States in the case of California and Nevada, because in Cal- ifornia the streams are dashing streams—swift mountain streams, you know—and there is no purpose to be accomplished by the regulation of flow there. Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir. Mr. BARHAM. Do you not think that if Congress would pass a regu- lation for the reclaiming of lands in Nevada they could go into Cali- fornia and erect reservoirs? The CHAIRMAN. Nevada could not do it; I am discussing now simply the ceding of lands to Nevada. Mr. Meap. The question asked me was with respect to the manage- ment of the lands. Mr. NEWLANDS. Yes, sir. Mr. Meap. What I was referring to in the case of the lands was this, that there is one class of lands at the present time that is not being managed at all, and that is the grazing lands. There are sev- ral hundred millions of acres of lands that never can be and never will he cultivated. They are too rough and broken, and there is no water for them, and there is no management or any provision for manage- ment of them at the present time. I believe the States as a whole would deal with that question better than it is being dealt with now, but possibly some States would deal with it worse, because a bad man- agement is worse than no management. Mr. KincG. There is no management at all now? Mr. MEAD. No, sir. I think ultimately the Government will do something with all these lands. I do not think there is any prospect of the lands ever being turned over to the States if the Government goes into the work of reclamation. It will handle the lands. Mr. BARHAM. What I wanted to get at by my question is this: We ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 101 have been trying to study this question for about six years here, and we were all originally of the opinion that the lands ought to go the States. Mr. MEAD. Yes. Mr. BARHAM. Now, you take Nevada for an illustration. How would it be possible for Nevada to conserve the waters of California under an act passed in Nevada; and yet is it not possible and legiti- mate for the Congress of the United States to do that very thing? Mr. MEAD. I think it is. Mr. BARHAM. How far would you go toward an irrigation of arid lands, that is, the conservation of the water, simply to conserve the waters in reservoirs? Mr. MEAD. Do you mean by the Goverment? Mr. BARHAM. Yes, sir. Mr. MEAD. I believe it is proper for the Government to build dams in large rivers where the expense of diversion is at present prohibi- tive. I believe it is proper for the Government to build storage reser- voirs at the head of streams to regulate the flood flow of those streams. Mr. BARHAM. Would you go further and carry the water upon the lands and distribute it? Mr. MEAD. No, sir. Mr. BARHAM. Youtake it in my State. Ido not ask this for the purpose of defeating legislation, but for the purpose of being able to answer questions. You take it in my State, where the waters are all appropriated over and and over again, and there is an existing law, if they are not, whereby they could be appropriated over and over again. You take any scheme in California, and you reservoir a lot of water. That water of necessity would go into the hands of private corporations or individuals. Mr. MEAD. It ought not to. Mr. BARHAM. No, of course not. The CHAIRMAN. It would simply run down the stream in its accus- tomed course, if it were turned into the stream. Mr. BARHAM. No, sir. Here are many ditches in places which do not earry half the water that they would or could use in the months that need irrigation. These corporations or individuals can not give their customers half as much water as they want. Suppose you con- serve all the waters properly open to conservation. The appropria- tions in California made, or to be made, would take all the waters which it was possible to eatch in reservoirs, and how is it possible to avoid the fact that you are going to enrich these corporations that have the ditches there now? Mr. MEAD. In the first place, [do not believe that the right to water should belong to a company or to a speculator, but these rights should attach to the lands which are irrigated. Mr. BARHAM. But here it is the other way. Mr. MEAD. Yes, but the question you have to consider is whether you will have California amend its laws or whether you will have the Government enact laws for California. Mr. BARHAM. Of course, we could not ask California to amend her laws. These rights are all vested rights attached to the lands that have canals there. Mr. KING. Does not your case suggest one of the almost insuper- able objections to the Government attempting distribution, where not only the high water but the low water has been taken up? Mr. BARHAM. I want to get at the facts, that is all. 102 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. Mr. MEAD. It seems to me that if the Federal Government should. establish a storage reservoir in the case you suggest, the first thing would be to determine the maximum appropriation in high water, and then the Government could only get anything above that maximum. For instance, if in high water they have appropriated there 1,000 inches, the Government would have to keep on carrying down to them 1,000 inches, and it would have to conserve water above that 1,000 inches or else its work would benefit none but those who were already using that amount. And above that 1,000 inches the Government unquestionably, as an appropriator, could sell anything more than that which was available. Mr. BARHAM. They could sell the water? Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir. Mr. BARHAM. How would you distribute the water? Mr. REEDER. Could you not measure that water where it goes out of the reservoir, and is not there a system which permits that water to go out down that stream 5 or 10 niles, and the same amount to be taken outdown there? Your weir tells you what amount you put in, and then you go down below and take out the same amount, less evapora- tion. But when you come toa place where you have appropriated more water than absolutely exists, that could not be done in sueh a place unless they could get some scheme that would solve this ques- tion. If vou ean say to them, “If you can arrange this so that you people can pay for it, we will do it, but if you can not make such arrangements we will go to Nevada or somewhere else and do work there.” The CHAIRMAN. It seems tome those places where they have appro- priated the complete amount of water, where it is done by corpora- tions, as I understand it is done in California, it strikes me that those are good places to let these corporations build their own storage reservoirs. Mr. MAXWELL. This bill does not really have any application to the interior valleys of California. It does not apply there, but there are immense regions where it will be the salvation of the people. Mr. BARHAM. Oh, well, I have projects in my own State, plenty of them. For instance, there is one for running a tunnel through to Willow Slough, I believe. Mr. MAXWELL. That is a place where this bill would work to a charm. Mr. MEAD. It does not make any difference what bill you pass, whenever it goes into operation you are going to run into that ques- tion of whether you are going to recognize the right of each State to distribute water in accordance with established laws and customs, or whether the Government is going to assume the responsibility on this whole question, if it does not recognize State rights. Mr. KInG. Pardon the interruption, but do you not think that we have got to recognize State rights, and the laws of the sovereign States, wherever we go upon a stream whe appropriations have been made; and the only places where the Federal Government would asstine supreme control would be where there are no appropriations? Mr. MEAD. I see no objection to the alternative proposed a moment ago, that this Government should establish certain conditions upon which it would appropriate funds. fr. KING. I wish to be perfectly frank with vou, and I wish to say that I should oppose any bill, I do not care how beneficial to my State or any other State, which seeks to abrogate the rights of the States to ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 108 control their own regulations and rights with relation to the distribu- tion of water. Mr. NEWLANDS. This bill especially preserves all those rights. Mr. Putuuies. How far should the National Government go in the conservation of water in opposition to State laws, or where should they stop? Mr. MEAD. I see no objection to the General Government passing an act to provide that all the water which is rendered available should attach to the land irrigated; that there should be no charge for the distribution except a carrier charge, and the right of appropriating those waters for speculative purposes should not be recognized; and I see no reason why every State should not enact a law of that kind. The Government required the States to provide certain guaranties in connection with the Carey Act. The States had to pass satisfactory laws, laws that were approved by the Secretary of the Interior, before they could undertake to handle that donation. The situation you [Mr. Barham] refer to in connection with certain of the proposed res- ervoirs in your State is familiar tome. I visited the stream you speak of several times, and there are three or four abandoned ditches, and the single ditch in operation was only diverting about one-quarter of the water of that stream, and the rest was all going to waste, simply because of litigation. Parties or corporations have been seeking to establish control for speculative purposes, and they have tied up the use of that stream almost entirely by litigation. The first step in irri- gation development is to get just and effective State legislation. But the difficulties that the States have had in enacting proper and suffi- cient State laws show the impending difficulties that Congress would encounter if it undertook this work. Mr. MoNDELL. Do you not think there is a field in which the Gov- ernment could operate in which it would not interfere at all with the State, or the State interfere with those operations. Mr. MEAD. Certainly. I think some works are of such magnitude and cost and their benefits extend over such vast areas that the Gov- ernment is the only agency now equipped to undertake them, All storage works on the heads of streams should remain public works. They should not be private works even if the private parties were willing to build them. Mr. MONDELL. Suppose that Congress should decide to enter upon a system of construction of storage reservoirs, and of those only, and should also determine that it would not enter upon a scheme unless some way of receiving compensation for the project in, say, ten years, either by means of the land or of the water, could be arranged Mr. MEAD. Yes? Mr. MONDELL (continuing). What plan would you su pensation? The CHAIRMAN. Perhaps Mr. Mead has not considered that question. Mr. MONDELL. I think we want to have the professor outline his ideas of what national legislation ought to be passed and what the General Government ought to do in the way of legislation. Probably the professor has thought out something on that line, and I would be glad to have any suggestions in that direction. What would you think is the proper field for the General Government to work in—what it ought to do? Mr. MEap. Just as a prelude to that statement let me say, in con- nection with Mr. Newlands’s question, that I do not believe the Gov- ernment ought to undertake that sort of work with the idea of getting egest of com- < 104 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. a direct compensation until it had determined first whether it was willing to assume control of the streams and regulate the head gates of existing ditches and collect its revenues either from the water or the land. If it decides it does not want to do it, then it should wait until the State makes the laws that would insure the collection of these rents and their transfer to the Government. Mr. BARHAM. We ought first to find out the facts in each particular project and then legislate for that particular project? Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir. Mr. BARHAM. That is my idea. Mr. Meap. Now, I think that the Government can appropriately begin with the construction of storage reservoirs, because they are needed on a great many streams to supply the deficiencies of those streams, and as a means of further extending the reclamation of the cultivated area or the reclamation of publie lands by permitting a larger use of the flood waters that now run to waste early in the sea- son. ‘The storage works on the head waters of streams are works that in the first place should not be built as private works but as puble works, for if they are built as private enterprises the owner of a reservoir has an opportunity in times of necessity to levy almost any exactions he chooses and which the necessities of the farmer will compel him to pay. Without the protection afforded by public control of streams the owner of a private reservoir who must turn his supply into the stream will often have difficulty in delivering water to the people who purchase it, so that with private ownership distri- bution must be protected at public cost, otherwise there is the danger that the reservoir owner would not make anything. These works ought to be public works, and they ought to be built as an aid to the improvement of the country. This is a work that the Government can appropriately enter upon at this time, and if the Government builds them simply as a method of utilizing our wasted resources and promoting the publie welfare it can appropriately charge nothing for the water, relying on getting its compensation in other directions. That does not interfere with development by private enterprise or with the operation of State laws. The Government can say that that water shall not belong to any speculative owner, but shall belong to the States, and can provide that the States shall be required to make laws for its distribution. Some of the States would not require any additional legislation, for they already have it. If the Government charges for it, if must then require that the States shall set in operation suitable machinery for collecting the charges for the water from those reservoirs, or it must go on the stream and collect them for itself. There are only the two alternatives. Take almost any instance I know of, and unless you have some machinery, some plan under which public officials having the law at their backs can raise or lower head gates, there will never be certainty or peace in the distribution of water stored with the pub- lic funds. This feature must be considered in any legislation that provides for a return of the money expended on reservoi's. Mr. NEWLANDs. Under this bill the Secretary of the Interior could refuse to enter upon a project until some method of ‘compensation was secured, or the State itself made laws insuring collection, could he not? He could do that as part of the rules and regulations? Mr. MgeAp. He could do this; and could he not, on the other hand, if he saw fit, build a reservoir in a State like Colerado, which has a State engineer and water commissioners, and then put his own agents on that stream and make regulations? ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 105 Mr. NEWLANDS. I should think not. This law recognizes the laws of the States in regard to the appropriation and diversion of water, and the United States, in its capacity as a water appropriator, would stand in the same place as any citizen. I should certainly expect the Goy- ernment, however, before it entered upon a project—and I think a business man like the present Secretary of the Interior would certainly take care of that—I should certainly expect that before he entered upon the project at all he would have some method devised, either by State laws or by arrangements with the people who had already occupied the lands, and had ditches along the river, by which he would have compensation. That would be simply a business arrange- ment. Mr. MEAD. Any legislation which stimulates the establishment of administrative laws by the States is worth far more than the land reclaimed by any storage or other work. Mr. REEDER. We have either to take these appropriations as dona- tions, or we have to take them with the hope of returning them to the Government. Now, Iam very much in favor of the Government simply building the reservoirs, but I do not believe that we have got to the place where Congress will do that. But if Congress sees there are certain funds that come from those regions, and which are avail- able for use in the work of irrigation, I think they will let us use them, with the provision for a return n, and I prefer to do the thing in that way rather than not to do it at all. Mr. NEWLANDS. The view of the average business man in the East in this matter is this: ‘‘You propose to reclaim 75,000,000 acres of land which is worthless now; will it be worth anything to you after the reservoirs are built and the rivers maintained at an average flow?” You answer, ‘‘ Yes.” ‘‘How much?” ‘From $1 to $10 without the irrigating ditches, even in its present desert state, with the chance of eetting water out of a river when reservoired.” They will say, “Well, if this work raises the land to that additional value, it sug- gests to us that there should be some method by which we will get the money back, and by which the same money can be used over and over again in making water available for the reclamation of other lands.” . Now, the purpose of this legislation is to make the water available for that purpose under such rules as the Secretary of the Interior may provide, and I assume that he will study carefully every project, and look particularly to the compensatory part of it, and see to it that either the local regulations and agreements or the existing laws of the States pata a method of securing compensation. _ Mr. BARHAM. I would like to ask one more question, and that is, if in your opinion the Gila River is in such a position now that it could be taken charge of by the Government of the United States under some such project as has been talked of here. ave you sufficient data so that the Government could go to work on that project and demon- strate to the country what can be done? Mr. WIuson, of Arizona, has a bill pending here for that work. Mr. Mean. I have no personal acquaintance with the Gila River. Mr. Newell can answer that. Mr. NEWELL. In my opinion the matter is in a condition which should be handled along the lines of the Indian bill, continuing the detailed surveys to ascertain all of the facts with the greatest care to ascertain the benefits to be derived and the cost of the wor k, and to actually begin work in the laying of the foundations as soon as the minor matter of shifting up or down the channel a few feet is determined, 106 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. Mr. BARHAM. Have you made these surveys and examinations suf- ficiently, so that you could at once proceed with a contract for putting in a portion of the foundation, at least? Mr. NEWELL. In reply to that I would say that a provision was carefully drawn and inserted in the Indian bill covering all these features. Now, if Congress is willing, the work can be begun at once and pushed through to a successful completion as rapidly as the funds are forthcoming. Mr. Wiuson, of Arizona. Has the amount—that is, the cost of the structure—been determined? Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. Mr. WILSON, of Arizona. That can be made a complete work for the amount already figured out, as to the cost? Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. The cost has been estimated upon that by two of the best known men in this country, Mr. J. B. Lippincott, of Los Angeles, and Mr. James D. Schuyler, who was engineer of the Sweetwater and the Hemet dams, so that there would be no hesitation about building these structures immediately. There are minor details which should be carefully considered after knowing the foundations. Mr. BARHAM. Do you know of any reason why we should not pass the bill of Mr. Wilson? Mr. NEWELL. No, sir. Mr. KtnG. IT would like to ask some questions of Mr. Newlands. I wish to preface the questions [ask Mr. Newlands by saying that it seems to me, in order to stand any show of getting legislation on the lines proposed in this bill, we have got to provide for compensation ; and I do not see any reason why men who can goon the public domain and take up the land after the Government has gone toa big expense and brought the water right to their doors, ought not to be willing to pay for it. Homesteaders now have to pay $45 and 850 an acre for every acre of water they get. Now, if the Government pays a large proportion of this—of course it will not pay for all of it; private canals and lateral ditches will be dug by private enterprise—but if the Gov- ernment pays a large proportion of the cost incident to the matter, I see no reason why they should not pay the Government for the value of the water obtained, and thereby increase this fund, which is con- stantly being diminished now, for the prosecution of further schemes. I want toask Mr. Newlands when, in his opinion, assuming that the Government enters upon this scheme of reclamation, can the Govern- ment safely withdraw from the State and leave to the State the oper- ation of a reservoir constructed by the Government? Mr. NEWLANDS. As soon as it receives Compensation. Mr. KING. Suppose a reservoir is constructed capable of irrigating 100,000 aeres of land, and 50,000 acres of that water are sold, leaving 50,000 acres unsold. How would you unite the conflicting interests there for the purpose of governing and controlling the water, and how would you contro] the water?) Would you have some representative of the Government there in the State taking charge of this reservoir, and trying to cooperate, as by a sort of an involuntary partnership, with the other persons to whom you had alienated it? Mav. NEWLANDS. I should think that so far as existing occupants are concerned, having existing ditches and partial reclamation, but without a sufficiency of water, the Secretary of the Interior could make arrangements with that acreage to supply them with so much water, and fix it in the shape of water-rights appurtenant to the land irrigated. Now, we will assume that a man owning 80 acres of land ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 107 has sufficient flood waters to furnish him with a foot of water all over his land, and he needs 6 inches more during the period of drought. Rules and regulations should be provided for by the Secretary of the Interior so as to fix the price of that 6 inches, and he should make it payable in annual installments, ten annual installments, say, and he would very likely even go further and make it a lien upon the land. But I think all that would be a matter of rule and regulations. Now, suppose besides these settlements there are existing public lands that are incapable of reclamation under existing conditions. Their value would be very much greater by reason of ‘the fact that the flow of the stream would be much greater and would be properly regulated. Now, the Secretary of the Interior could make aregulation that from S1 to $5 an acre should be paid in ten annual installments, say for the land itself, leaving it toa man to arrange for the carriage of it through existing ditches. Mr. KING. Does it not look to you like there would be an enforced partnership between the State and individuals and the Government which would establish more or less a system of paternalistic land- lordism? Mr. NEWLANDS. No, sir. I think the title to both land and water would gradually drift out of the Government, and I think instead of perpetuating the ownership of land it would have a tendency in exactly the opposite direction, for the Government will be constantly parting with its rights, both in land and water, and in the end the control of the reservoirs and irrigation works can be finally turned over to the homesteaders. I have not provided for sueh turning over in this bill. Mr. Mead suggested that it would be best to turn over the reservoirs to the States. That is all very well if the reservoir is in the same _ State as the land to be irrigated and reclaimed. But suppose such a case as that in Nevada, where these three rivers, whose reservoirs will be in California, irrigate lands in Nevada. Nevada could not admin- ister a reservoir in California. So I left that out completely, believ- ing that the experience of operation under this act would make apparent some method by which that question could be properly handled. Mr. REEDER. Do you not think that the homesteader and the Goy- ernment have already gone into a partnership, and that until the homesteader perfects his title that partnership does not cease to exist until the final papers are made out? Mr. KinG. There is no partnership. The Government does not control his crops or his conduct. He is not renting anything. They are in the relation of vendor and vendee. Mr. NEWLANDS. Yes, and that would be the relation here. Mr. MEAD. I would like to add one more word. The discussion of Mr. King and Mr. Newlands has suggested to me a little further elab- oration of my answer to this committee a moment ago about legislation. I believe that States which have good laws and proper institutions, if they had the lands they could handle this matter better than Congress ‘an, looking simply at their internal interests and ignoring this ques- tion of interstate waters. I believe there are States where they are not equipped to do anything with this question, with either the land or water, under present laws, and there must be, inevitably, better State water laws in the future, or the interests of irrigation will be seriously jeopardized; and I believe that in those States one of two alternatives must be accepted—either Congress must insist on ade- quate legislation previous to appropriating money to help them, or 108 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. it must enact laws of its own and take control there, because there is absolutely no provision whatever in many of these Western States by which there could be any effective distribution of stored water. There is now no orderly or systematic distribution of the water of the streams, and one of two policies should be adopted by the Government in this matter—either to put pressure on the States to enact wise laws, and then distribute the water under those laws, or else Congress to take control itself. Mr. NEWLANDS. Would you suggest that a provision be put in this bill similar to the provision in the Carey Act, compelling the States to pass legislation upon this subject that will be satisfactory to the Secretary of the Interior? Mr. MEAD. I believe that would be a wise provision, and a helpful provision to the whole Western country. It would stimulate interest and action in this matter. There are a number of provisions in Mr. Newland’s bill that ought to be incorporated in State laws. They are entirely right. The provision for sinall acreage and the provision for prevention of speculative ownership of water are wise and proper, and I see no reason why there should not be properly inserted in this legislation that the States should enact provisions for the orderly distribution of the waters of the streams and for the collection of the money under State laws, and guaranteeing its payment to the Secre- tary of the Interior as a condition precedent to receiving aid. That has been done in legislation making donations to States before. Thereupon, at 5 o’elock p. m., the committee adjourned until Satur- day, February 9, 1901, at 11 o’clock a. m. WASHINGTON, D. C., February 9, 1901. The committee met, Hon. Thomas H. Tongue in the chair. The CHAIRMAN. We would like to hear from Mr. Maxwell in con- tinuation of the discussion of the practicability of the Government constructing works for the reclamation of the arid lands. STATEMENT OF GEORGE H. MAXWELL, CHAIRMAN OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF NATIONAL IRRIGATION ASSOCIATION. Mr. MAXWELL. At the last meeting of this committee particular attention was given to the fact that there are many places where the reclamation of arid land will be involved more or less with the control of water now used in part for irrigation. Undue emphasis was, in my opinion, placed upon this matter, as it is not an insuperable objec- tion, nor one which can not be removed by the application of a few broad principles. This may well be laid aside in favor of simpler and commoner cases, Where the Government, as the owner of the arid lands, can reclaim vast areas without complicacy with established rights. It is better to take up these simpler cases first and to leave the doubtful matters for solution. In other words the bill under dis- cussion does not purport to deal with the intricacies brought up, but rather to apply to the great need of the general reclamation of the West. If we diverge from this central idea to discuss special cases we shall soon become involved in endless side issues. - There are locations where the Government can build these irrigation works, and where they will be remunerative and profitable as a busi- ness proposition to the Government, although, of course, there are ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 109 other reasons why the Government would be benefited, even though it made no direct profit. Referring, for example, to the item in the Indian appropriation bill for the San Carlos dam in Arizona, the area of public lands reclaim- able is 100,000 aeres, the exact ¢ apacity of the reservoir being 241,000 acre-feet, and the public land irrigable therefrom would have a value of $5,034,900. Thus, if the Government went into this fora profit, it would produce a Value of more than twice the amount of the investment. Mr. NEWLANDS. Does the estimate cover the cost of all the divert- ing ditches that are necessary to reclaim the land or simply reservoir? Mr. MAXWELL. It covers the main canal also. The entire cost of the project, as I recall it, is something inside of $2,000,000. The cost of the reservoir, I think, is estimated at $1,030,000, but I have made a liberal estimate. The point is that if the Government wanted to go into it as a profitable enterprise it could make a profit; but, in my judgment, the Government does not want to do that. What the Goy- ernment wants to do is to create homes on the public domain, and if it gets this money back, that is all it needs. The remarkable results that would be recorded in the West can be illustrated by additional facts with reference to the reasons which are applicable to all the other arid States and Territories. In my discussion I have followed an entirely different line from that suggested by Mr. Mead. The difficulties with Mr. Mead’s conception of the subject, in my judgment, are that he illustrates his remarks by conditions where complications exist which would prevent the satis- factory operation of this bill; but we must bear in mind that there are estimated to be in the neighbor hood of 100,000,000 aeres of lands in the West which are cz pable of reclamation—Government lands; that those lands are scattered throughout a multitude of localities, each locality having certain specifie local conditions, and you can find locality after locality, you can find land enough in the West which the Government could reclaim under the Newlands bill to kee p the Government at work ten years with all the money that would come in under that bill without running counter to one single objection Mr. Mead has raised. Take the results of this policy. There are, I appre- héend, in Arizona at least, 5,000,000 acres of land which could be reclaimed. I take that as a round sum for illustration. I have heard it estimated as high as 12,000,000 acres. I have heard Hon. Binger Hermann, in anaddress ata banquet at Phoenix, Ariz., five years ago, I think, estimate the number of acres as 12,000,000. But take 5,000 000 acres, reclaiming it on the average cost per acre given, and dispose of it at $20 an acre, and what have youdone? You have cre- ated out of an absolute desert, which is worthless to-day, either to the State or the National Government, property worth $100,000,000. Just think of it! That ean be done in Arizona, a Territory where the Goy- ernment owns the land and water and where there are no complica- tions. Mr. WILSON, of Idaho. And the Government also has entire con- trol of legislation? Mr. MAXWELL. Yes. What dces that mean to the Territory? At 2 per cent on the hundred that would give Arizona an annual income which would support the Territory. The increase which will pile up when you begin to take into consideration the values created by the building of irrigation works in the West dazzles imagination. 110 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you one question right there, if you please. In estimating the amount of acres in Arizona at 5,000,000, do you mean that to embrace the total arid-land area or the land that could be fairly reclaimed? Mr. MAXWELL. The irrigable land only, the land that is reclaim- able. From the standpoint of the Territory of Arizona you have practically created a commonwealth. You have created a property there that will be a basis for State taxation, and so on for all time. You have created it out of nothing. The Government has got its money back. What else has the Government got? At the last session of Congress this Government appropriated, I think, $710,000,000, or something over that. Our population is some- thing like 76,000,000. In other words, to make the illustration, if we do appropriate $760,000,000, we would have appropriated and expended $10,000,000 for every 1,000,000 of population. And yet no man has felt the burden. Now, what does that mean? If it has put 5,000,000 acres of this land under cultivation in Arizona, it means a population at the very least of 1,000,000; but that is low, because there are sections in existencein Utah and California to-day where the average population on irrigated land isas many as 1 peracre. ‘There is asaving to the Govy- ernment of $10,000,000 per yearon the same basisof population. Ifthe population in this case was simply doubled yeu could collect twice as much revenue, or you could collect half as much from each and have the same as now. Mr. Ray. How do you figure out so much profit to the Government? A day or two ago I attended a meeting here, and one of the speakers adverted to the faet that corporations, at the most desirable points and where most feasible, had engaged in this work of buiding reser- voirs and supplying water for irrigation, and had abandoned it. He stated that such reclamation work.could not be earried on because it had proved so costly and unremunerative. Now, if the corporations can not do it, how ean the Federal Government take the same land and carry on this work and be expected to get great returns from it? Mr. MAXWELL. I would like to say, Mr. Ray, that in my discussion here I had not intended to convey the idea that the Government can carry out this general plan and make a profit on each and every proj- ect. The plan I have been discussing is based on the idea that the Government shall get its money back from each project, with the benefit to go to the public from the perpetual basis of taxation created. That is the benefit to the State, the creating of a popula- tion from which the Government can perpetually draw revenue, That is sufficient to warrant the Government in reclaiming this prop- erty and adding it toour domain. That the Federal Government can do that when corporations, or even the States, can not do it grows out of several reasons. The advocates of the theory of State cession were insistent in Congress for many years before the Carey Act. Finally the Carey Act was passed as a basis of compromise. The Carey Act permits each State to take 1,000,000 acres and reclaim it without cost, provided they subdivided it among homesteaders. Now, if the State had the money in the Treasury to reclaim that land under the Carey Act for the very lowest price which it could be done, if they could let a contract for spot cash payable whenever the work was done, I think that, provided the administration was wise and honest, the State could do it; but in the first place, the difficulty is that the adminis- tration of these matters in the States has not been satisfactory; it has fallen into the hands of incompetent men, to say the least; and more ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. pO el than that, the States have not the money and ean not raise it. Take the Territory of Arizona. It has no funds; it can not bond the Ter- ritory for this great work. If it could borrow the money it could not pay the interest, because the proceeds from the disposition of the land could not come in until the settler had gone on the land and produeed a crop, and lived there a number of years. Yes, not only that; even in the States where they have the resources which would enable them to raise the money by direct taxation or by issuing State bonds and entering upon this work, they have refused to doit. In California the people have taken the ground that the Government should reclaim these lands, and they have declined to enter upon the project. In Wyoming and Montana, where they have attempted to reclaim lands under the Carey Act, they have not assumed the obliga- tion of seeing it done successfully. They have turned it over to land speculators and allowed them to take the contract and take bonds for their pay secured on the lands. They can not sell those bonds for cash. The law theoretically contemplates that they shall sell the bonds and put the money into the State treasury and then let the con- tract; but they do not do it. I investigated this last summer and I found the law permitted a bonded debt of $12 an acre upon that land. They were not able to sell the bonds. They contracted with men who undertook to dig the ditches at the highest price they could give them, which was $12 an acre. The result is going to be in every such case, if they do reclaim the land the men who hold the bonds will foreclose and get the land. Governor J. K. Toole, of Montana, last month said that under the Carey Act there had been quite a number of enter- prises started in Montana, but not one acre of land has ever been reclaimed. In the last report of the Montana State commission having the mat- ter in charge it is stated that if the bonds could be sold and cash obtained the lands could be reclaimed; but this could not be done, and, as a consequence, the whole matter has been declared a failure. The so-called Carey Act is to be found in section 4 of the act of August 18, 1894, entitled ‘‘An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1595, and for other purposes” (28 Stat., 372-422), authorizing the Secretary of the Interior, with the approval of the President, to contract and agree to patent to the States of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah, or any other States, as provided in the act, in which may be found desert lands, not to exceed 1,000,000 acres of such lands to each State, under certain conditions. The text of the act is as follows: Sec. 4, That to aid the public-land States in the reclamation of the desert lands therein, and the settlement, cultivation, and sale thereof in small tracts to actual settlers, the Secretary of the Interior, with the approval of the President, be, and hereby is, authorized and empowered, upon proper application of the State, to contract and agree from time to time with each of the States in which there may be situated desert lands as defined by the act eutitled *-An act to provide for the sale of desert land in certain States and Territories,” approved March third, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, and the act amendatory thereof, approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, binding the United States to donate, grant, and patent to the State free of cost for survey or price such desert lands, not exceeding one million acres in each State, as the State may cause to be irri- gated, reclaimed. occupied, and not less than twenty acres of each one-hundred- and-sixty-acre tract cultivated by actual settlers, within ten years next after the passage of this act, as thoroughly as is required of citizens who may enter under the said desert-land law. 112 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. Before the application of any State is allowed or any contract or agreement is executed or any segregation of any of the land from the public domain is ordered by the Secretary of the Interior, the State shall file a map of the said land proposed to be irrigated which shall exhibit a plan showing the mode of the contemplated irrigation and which plan shall be sufficient to thoroughly irrigate and reclaim said land and prepare it to raise ordinary agricultural croys and shall also show the source of the water to be used for irrigation and reclamation, and the Secre- tary of the Interior may make necessary regulations for the reservation of the lands applied for by the States to date from the date of the filing of the map and plan of irrigation, but such reservation shall be of no force whatever if such map and plan of irrigation shall not be approved. That any State contracting under this section is hereby authorized to make all necessary contracts to cause the said lands to be reclaimed and to induce their settlement and cultivation in accordance with and subject to the provisions of this section: but the State shall not be authorized to lease any of said lands or to use or dispose of the same in any way whatever, except to secure their reclamation, cultivation, and settlement. As fast as any State may furnish satisfactory proof, according to such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, that any of said lands are irrigated, reclaimed, and occupied by actual settlers, patents shall be issued to the State or itsassigns for said lands so reclaimed and settled: Provided, That said States shall not sell or dispose of more than one hundred and sixty acres of said lands to any one person, and any surplus of money derived by any State from the sale of said lands in excess of the cost of their reclamation sha!1 be held as a trust fund for and be applied to the reclamation of other desert lands in such State; that to enable the Secretary of the Interior to examine any of the lands that may be selected under the provisions of this section there is hereby appropriated, out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, one thousand dollars. In the act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1897, and for other purposes, approved June 11, 1896, there is, under the head of appro- priation for ‘* surveying public lands,” the following provision: That under any law heretofore or hereafter enacted by any State, providing for the reclamation of arid lands, in pursuance and acceptance of the terms of the grant made in section four of an act entitled ‘‘An act making appropriations for the sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundredand ninety-five,” approved August eighteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-four, a lien or liens is hereby authorized to be created by the State to which such lands are granted and by no other authority whatever, and when created shall be valid on and against the separate legal subdivisions of land reclaimed, for the actual cost and necessary expenses of reclamation and reason- able interest thereon from the date of reclamation until disposed of to actual set- tlers: and when an ample supply of water is actually furnished in a substantial ditch or canal, or by artesian wells or reservoirs, to reclaim a particular tract or tracts of such lands, then patents shall issue for the same to such State without regard to settlement or cultivation: Provided, That in no event, in no contingency, and under no circumstances shall the United States be in any manner directly or indirectly liable for any amount of any such lien or liability, in whole or in part. A further modification has been made by an act making appropria- tions for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1902, and for other purposes (approved Mareh 3, 1901), as follows: Sec. 3. That section four of the act of August eighteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-four, entitled ‘An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, and for other purposes,” is hereby amended so that the ten years’ period within which any State shall cause the lands applied for under said act to be irrigated and reclaimed, as provided in said section as amended by the act of June eleventh, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, shall begin to run from the date of approval by the Secretary of the Interior of the State’s application for the seg- regation of such lands: and if the State fails within said ten years to cause the whole or any part of the lands so segregated to be so irrigated and reclaimed, the Secretary of the Interior may, in his discretion, continue said segregation fora period of not exceeding five years, or may, in his discretion, restore such lands to the public domain. ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES A es The laws of Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah are somewhat similar, and provide that the State land boards are authorized to make contracts with private individuals or corporations for the main canals or other irrigation works, and also to fix the charge for perpetual water rights. This right goes with the land and can not be sold separately. In Idaho and Wyoming the fixed rate for the purchase of the land from the State is 50 cents peracre. In Utah it is not to exceed $1 per acre. Under the Washington law a single commissioner is authorized, who shall have power to make contracts for canals, ditches, or other irri- gation works, reclamation, settlement, and sale of lands. Contracts are to be approved by the governor and attorney-general of the State. Lands shall be sold with a perpetual water right at not less than $5 nor more than $50 per acre and a maintenance fee of not more than $1.50 per acre annually. The person or persons or corporation whose bid shall be accepted shall own and must maintain all canals for a period of at least fifteen years from date of acceptance of completed works, and thereafter the same shall revert to the landowners. The successful bidder shall pay to the State for the privilege enjoyed in reclaiming the lands 75 cents per acre to defray expenses and reim- burse the State for outlay. . In Montana the State, as before stated, has been unable to accom- plish anything of note under the Carey Act, for the reason that the State has refused to make itself responsible in any way. The matter has been intrusted to the arid-land-grant commission, which has been vainly endeavoring to dispose of the bonds. The principal facts con- cerning this commission are as follows: (1) The State arid-land grant commission is composed of five members. (2) It is empowered to select lands and to make surveys of necessary water sys- tems for their reclamation. (3) To enter into contracts for the construction of water systems and to cause the lands to be settled. (4) Toissue thirty-year 6 per cent bonds to meet the cost of reclamation and settlement of lands, which bonds constitute a lien upon the land, water rights, water system, and appurtenances to a district belonging. (5) To issue thirty-year 6 per cent bonds to develop water-power plants and water supply for domestic use, for the redemption of which bonds a sinking fund- is provided. These bonds constitute a lien upon the water system and appurte- nances. All bonds can be foreclosed, as in the case of mortgages, for nonpayment of principal or interest. (6) To sell such bonds at par for cash and pay cash for construction, or to pay bonds in lieu of cash. ; (7) The commission exercises full and immediate control over all construction and requires suitable indemnity from the contractor in the form of a bond from some responsible surety company. (8) The commission retains 15 per cent of the entire cost of construction of water systems and settlement of lands until both are fully accomplished. (9) The commission operates and maintains perpetually the water system, charging the entire cost of such maintenance and operation equally against all acreage in the district. (10) The commission sells all land and water rights, collects all moneys and places them in the treasury of the State. (11) In the event interest is not paid when due, for want of funds, interest coupons may be registered in the office of the State treasurer, which registered coupons will draw interest at 6 per cent per annum. (12) In the event there is a surplus in the State treasury after providing for the redemption of coupons next due, the commission may require the State treasurer to invest such moneys in State, county, or school-district bonds. or it may cause such moneys to be placed in trust for the benefit of the bondholders. (13) The commission will provide for the payment of interest and principal in the manner as shown herewith in certificate of selection, terms of sale, and regulations, 11196—01——_8 114 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. Summing up the situation, the results are best shown in the accom- panying table, which brings out plainly the fact that after six or seven years of effort less than 1 000,000 acres have been applied for by 5 out of the 11 States named in the act, and about one- -fourth of the acreage contained in this list has been approved. Less than 8,000 acres eee actually been patented or disposed of by the Gov ernment out of the possible total. In other words, an enormously expensive machinery has been created by law to dispose of these lands, and after years of effort and large expenditures incurred by the various States in legis- lation and in the maintenanee of boards and surveys, less than 5,000 acres have actually been disposed of. Status of selections under act of August 18, 1894. Acreage applied for by each of the States: Acres. Teal OWtS08) 25 et 8s eens Bs Jee Be oss 323, 308, 80 WeonitHM ani iS bs 2.9 ao eee Beek oe ote ee -. 91,015.00 RGAE Inia 30.2 = we be eee Soe. hae ae ee Oe Oe ee me — 467, 50 Wrashinotony ists e222 eee ore Ce a ee ee 5, 456, 26 Weypoiing, 37 Nste ok aoe wee ay as ce een x Sh oan eee ee 3 , 210. 34 abst) csc Sal gus eeter eee cceuhaners ease nay 948, 457. 90 Acreage of lists approved (not patented): - Idaho, : PORINUA) 2: 2 a cleat ern eI See oar 2 = ee ats wag, eee .. Of, 106.51 Montana,,:5 lists: 2.90... =>: a een eee Soyer eee. 91,015.00 Wyoming, UT) gts. o- ice cas genes cscs Li yn 2s se seer cee 99, 057.58 SPs. say con een Pe et ee I Salary, os 247, 779. 09 Acreage of lists patented: Wyoming, listsy3t 29. 5.49.25 vot a} 24-22 ore eee 7, 640. 91 Acreage of lists still pending: : 7 NG Soe ea des a ae ee Ce, So. ele ce oe eee 265, 602. 29 DT ontates. ~ 2 3) 6 eae oe bee Ri: dae bs oaalam ee dameleets ee None. RRS 3 Po ce ney Rene Oy eee oe 2 oh aes 4 ed ares 236, 467,50 WESTIN LON: 21-2820) sieGenPesee Nene; baaiex cease otal ss eee 85, 456. 26 NV ROEEURLE s soa 9. bt ee hs ee Sena ee 82, 960. 59 SDOPHLG. ache a4 ay oad ee ene i ek ee 670, 486. 64 All but a very small number of the pending lists are awaiting the action of the States. Mr. NEWLANDS. Is it not a fact that in many cases the lands to be reclaimed are in one State and the reservoir necessary for the storage of the water to reclaim the land is in another State, and thus an inter- state question is Involved? Mr. MAXWELL. Very frequently. Mr. Ray. How eould the United States go to work and take lands and waters from one State and give them to another for the benefit of another? Mr. MAXWELL. I do not understand that if does so. Mr. NEWLANDS. The proposition is simply to store the flood waters. Mr. MAXWELL. I will illustrate by the case of the land between California and Nevada. The reservoirs which must be used to irri- eate the lands of Nevada must bein California. California can receive no benefit from them. Mr. Ray. To whom do they belong? Mr. MAXWELL. The reservoir sites belong to the Government. They are in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. a ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. a Mr. NEWLANDS. But these waters all belong to the Government. Mr. MAXWELL. In California the Government controls all the water connected with the publie lands. Mr. Ray. That raises a different proposition, providing those waters you seek do belong to the General Government. If they belong to the General Government, and it is desirable to use them, for instance by the State of Nevada, for irrigation purposes, then the United States Government would be at perfect liberty to give Nevada either absolute fee and title to the water or to give them the i ‘ight to use the water; so that in California there is no interstate question at all, because ¢ ‘ali- fornia has no right there whatever. Mr. MAXWELL. But California has certain rights. As I understand the first question, it was how the Federal Government could take water from one State to irrigate in another State. I was illustrating that by the conditions between the States of California and Nevada. Mr. Ray. The proposition of Mr. Newlands was that interstate ques- tions were raised here, because of the fact that these waters were in Calfornia, and Nevada needs them to irrigate its lands. Now, if that is true, then the United States Government could not interfere and could not avail itself of the water. If it is not true, then there is no interstate question at all; it is simply a question between Nevada and the United States. Mr. BaRHAM. There are a whole lot of lakes there we can take for illustration. We will not take Lake Tahoe, because that would involve other interstate questions; but take these others. They are owned by the Government of the United States. Now, we want to put a dam at the outlet of one of those lakes. It does not affect any private inter- est at all in California to take water and hold it there to be run out into Nevada for irrigation purposes. But vou could not take Lake Tahoe, because that is owned by private ownership on our side, while on the Nevada side I think you have cut off the timber. Mr. NEWLANDS. Just let me explain the topography there. The Sierra Nevada Mountains divide California from Nevada. As you go along the summit of the mountain there is a slope toward California and a slope toward Nevada. The places where we propose to’ estab- lish reservoirs are in California; the lands to be reclaimed are in Nevada. All the plains, recollect, are in Nevada; the California side is all mountainous, and all those reservoir sites are in California. These rivers are not navigable, and it is proposed to store the flood waters, which otherwise flow into the sinks of the desert, where they can not be utilized. The interstate question I suggest is this: That it would be difficult for the State of Nevada to enter upon an enterprise of constructing reservoirs in the State of California. Assuming that the National Government grants to Nevada the ownership of all the public lands on that slope in California, why, then, this diffic ulty pre- sents itself. Nevada is making an iny estment upon California soil. As soon as that property is transferred from the United States to Nevada it becomes property subject to taxation; as long as itis in the ownership of the Federal Government it escapes taxation. Now, my judgment is that complications will arise, and reservoirs located in California, but belonging to Nevada, would simply be taxed out of existence. Mr. Ray. One of two things is true: Either the waters and lands that it is desirable to utilize for irrigation purposes in the State of Nevada belong to and are under control of the United States, or they belong to and are under the control of the State of California. If LEG ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. they belong to and are under the control of the State of California, then the Government of the United States could not interfere and could not avail itself of it. If, on the other hand, they are under the control and belong to the United States, then the United States can grant every right it has to the State of Nevada Mr. NEWLANDS. Except exemption from taxation. Mr. Ray. And would not have to pay a single penny by way of tax- ation or otherwise to California, because California can not tax that land if it belongs to the United States. Mr. WIbLson, of Idaho. But the moment it grants it to Nevada it Can. Mr. MAXWELL. I think the Supreme Court of the United States has answered Mr. Ray’s question. In fact, the legal situation is this: The Government has all the right with reference to the water relative to the public land that any riparian owner has, without regard to State laws. Mr. Ray. You are referring to navigable waters. Mr. MAXWELL. No; to-running streams. This is the decision of the Supreme Court in 174 United States Reports. In the absence of specific authority from Congress a State can not, by legislation, destroy the right of the United States, as the owner of lands border- ing on a stream, to the continuous flow of its water, so far at least as may be necessary for the beneficial uses of the Government property. In other words, the right of the riparian owner attaches to all lands owned by the Government, in the hands of the Government, without regard to State lines. Mr. Ray. That is perfectly true, but it does not need any decision of the United States Supreme Court to decide that; everybody knows that; that is a right of a riparian owner. Now then comes the other question, even if that be true, if the United States Government does own that, it is simply a holding, the Government would have no right whatever, not the slightest right, to divert a single pint of that water into the State of Nevada for the purpose of irrigation in the State of Nevada. It is simply an instance of the right of the adjacent owner, and the facet that the United States owns land in California bordering on this stream does not give it any right whatever to take the water in that stream and carry it into Nevada to irrigate lands in Nevada or any other place. f Mr. IXING. In the arid region, either by judicial decisions or com- mon law, the riparian right has been abrogated, and we do not recog- nize the doctrine of riparian proprietorship, and you may have a stream flowing before your door and if you do not appropriate it I can go above and appropriate every drop of it. Mr. Ray. Then, if that is your law, it is in contradiction to the Supreme Court of the United States. That can not be true; it is impossible for that to be true, because if the United States owns land bordering on a stream, and this decision is good for anything, then the United States Government has the absolute right to have that Water continue to run by the side of that land, and it is entirely imma- terial whether they appropriate it or not. There is that decision. Now, the fact that the State has a different law as to itself and its owners of land does not interfere at all with the rights of the United States Government. Mr. Ikinc. I do not know the decision, but in 1866 Congress enacted that the loeal laws and customs of the States and Territories with respect to the use of water should be recognized by the United States ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. a 15 Government, and the decisions of the Federal courts have recognized those local laws and customs. Mr. Ray. It must commend itself to your common sense that if I own a farm upon a stream in any State of this Union—and I do not believe there is a State that has a law to the contrary—and the water of that stream runs through my farm, it is entirely immaterial whether I use it for milling purposes or any other purpose, to hold that you, owning land above me, 2 miles above, may divert all that water and carry it off in another direction and leave my farm without water for my cattle to drink, or for me to dip up for any other farming purpose, would be contrary to the primary rights of man. Mr. KInG. That is precisely what I mean to assert; that what you state is not the law. Mr. RAy. Then you could leave a farm absolutely dry? Mr. KinG. Yes; if the farmer does not use the water. Mr. Ray. Simply because he does not divert the water, even though it is that water that gives his farm value? Tell mea State where that law prevails. Mr. MAXWELL. The case of the Livestock Company v. Booth, in California decides that point—that the riparian owner has no more right than any other owner. He has the right of use, but he has no right to water that he is not using. Mr. Ray. Thatis just the point Imade. If that water runs through your farm and percolates into your soil, your cattle drink from that water, and you are using it for your ordinary farming purposes; you go down with your bucket, dip up a pail of that water, and it perco- lates into your soil and it waters your farm. Now, then, the idea that a farmer above can divert all that water for some use of his own is contrary to the primary rights of humanity, and I never heard of such a proposition before. Mr. NEWLANDS. The riparian doctrine belongs to the wet region, and this doctrine asserted by Mr. King belongs to the arid region, and you will find that beneficial use is the basis and measure of the right to water. Mr. Ray. Do you state, Mr. Newlands, that that is a law in the State of Nevada? Mr. NEWLANDS. The arid region; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. If the man above happens to get title before the man below he can appropriate the water, and then when the man below gets the right to appropriate it it is already gone. Is that true? Mr. Kine. No; my proposition is this: You may have a stream running through your ground, and if you do not use it IT may go upon the stream above you forty years later and appropriate all that water if you have not subjected it to a beneficial use; then I can appro- priate that much of the water which you have not so used. Mr. BARHAM. If you go up above you can only use that which the man below has not been using. The very proposition that Mr. Ray makes is that the man below has used it. Now, then, you do not mean to controvert that proposition at all, because if the man below is using it for irrigation or drinking by his cattle, or for any other purpose, of course you could not run that stream off, divert that stream under any law on earth. You did not mean to say that. Mr. Kine. Oh, no. The CHAIRMAN. Suppose a dairyman was located on a stream and had 10 cows, and he was appropriating water enough to water his 10 cows. DoI understand that aman can go upon that stream above 11s ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. him and appropriate all the water except that which he has been using for his 10 cows; and then, when the dairyman gets ready to enlarge his dairy, and needs more water, that he has no right to use any more? . Mr. KinG. That is exactly right. And in some States they do not recognize the right to use water for drinking purposes to be superior to the right to use it for agriculture. Mr. Ray. If the Government owns a million acres of land through which runs a fresh-water stream, and it is the only stream running through it, and the Government deeds to mea thousand aeres just above the million acres it owns, do you mean to say that I have a perfect right to divert that river and ear ry it away from the million acres owned by the Government, and that thereafter, when the Goy- ernment sells that land, the purchasers must go without water? Mr. KING, That is it. Mr. BARHAM. I think, as far as the illustration you gave just now is concerned, that in the arid-land region the decision would be just what Mr. King claims, because for the same reason the Government has not appropriated that water; it has not used it; it has not begun to use it. If there were people below there who had used it. then you could not divert the water. Mr. Ray. Do you think, if they sold to me 10 aeres of land above the million acres through which the river runs, that I thereby ean become the exclusive owner of the right to use all that water? Mr. BARHAM. Not unless you put it to beneficial use on your land. The Government has not used the water at all, and it knows when it deeds you the thousand acres of land, or whatever it is, that you can not use that land unless you have a right to divert that water. But the proposition you started out with is elementary, and I admit the law. ; Mr. Ray. You have a right to divert that water as it flows through your land for the ordinary uses of that land, if you do not unnecessa- rily detain it, but when it passes on you must restore it to the original stream for the beneficial use of the owners below. Mr. WILSON, of Idaho. That is not the law in the arid region. Mr. BARHAM. There is no doubt that you are right about the ele- mentary principle of common law. Mr. NEWLANDS. Yes, that is Common law, but not the law of the arid region. i Mr. BARHAM (continuing). But you forget this: The use of that water is for irrigation, and you own the thousand acres of land, and you have the right to take all the water which is a profitable use of the water, all that is necessary for the irrigation of the thousand aeres, and turn back the balanee. Mr. Ray. You must restore it, must you not, to the original stream? Mr. BARHAM. Yes; there is no doubt about that. Mr. Ray. In other words, you ean turn it out info channels on your own land, but those channels must come back. Mr. WILSON. Sometimes it is carrie away for distances of over 50 miles, Mr. KInG. You never restore it at a and you do not have to do so under the law in the West. In this contrast Pomeroy on Riparian Rights and Mr. Gould and you will see the difference between the common law and the law of the arid-land regions. The CHAIRMAN. Take another view—a situation which is expected to arise very frequently. Suppose a homestead settler in your State, or in Utah, should start to go into the fruit business, and he begins ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 119 in a small way and finally sueceeds in getting an orchard of 5 ac res. It is all his means will permit. Now, while he gets his ore ae a of acres and turns the water on it, I under ‘stand that the riparian owners above can use all the water exe ept the amount he needs for his 5 acres, and when he gets ready to make an addition to his orchard, to e “ulti- vate 10 acres, he ean not get the water for it. I think that is a fair illustration, just like the illustration of the dairyman., Mr. WILSON, of Idaho. The State legislature has provided how water shall be appropriated, and there are various steps to it in different States. In our State, for instance, you will file a regulation notice for so many cubie feet per second, enough to ir rigate yourland. You commence to divert that water, and you are given a reasonable time to divert it, and what that reasonable time is of course differs with each case. But you must pursue it with reasonable diligence, and of course you must reclaim your land with reasonable diligence, Mr. Kine. Mr. Chairman, if you should go there and start your garden of 5 acres and construct a ditch only large enough to irrigate 5 acres, and it was found from your outward conduct that that was all you intended to appropriate, then I could go above you a year afterwards, or a day afterwards, and take all the balance of the stream for my use. The CHAIRMAN. However, if I started a garden or an orehard, I would be allowed what water I needed, and notice would be taken ‘of my intentions and conduct in the way of enlarging my production. Mr. Witson, of Idaho. We do not have to restore it to the stream. Sometimes we divert water for 50 miles and pass hundreds of home- steads. The theory of returning to the stream is entirely abandoned, ex necessitate re, on account of the conditions which exist. That idea of returning the water to the stream has been done away with, that right has been abrogated, and the cireuit court of appeals of San Francisco has affirmed the law we had in that respect. I tried the case in which that was decided, and am familiar with it. The CHAIRMAN. Another question. Under these State laws can the owners appropriate all water, so that subsequent homestead set- tlers upon publhe land that is now unoceupied will have no right to the water? Mr. WILSON, of Idaho. Absolutely. It is done over the whole arid region. The CHAIRMAN. Is not that a serious matter to consider when the Government undertakes to construct these reservoirs? Is there not danger in constructing these reservoirs to store water that may be used by owners before it gets there? Mr. WILson, of Idaho. I do not think that there is any difficulty about that. People go there to farm, say, 50,000 acres of land, and they find there is only sufficient water to irrigate 10,000 acres, and they find that this 10,000 acres is where the water comes out of the canyon, and so they locate there. You ean see what the result would be if you did not permit such a law as that—if you did not permit the first man upon the stream to use the water. Mr. BARHAM. Take an illustration that frequently occurs in Cali- fornia. Here are ditches filled with water, and the water is appro- priated, all the water—all the water that can be conserved in the mountains by any bill that has. been introduced here. Now, if we build a dam up here in the mountains to conserve the flood waters, how are you going to prevent the possibility of simply feeding the ditches and the appropriation of water that has already been made? Mr. Kina. The Government before it builds a dam for conservation 120 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. purposes must ascertain the maximum appropriation of all the pro- prietors, by common measurement, and then it can not have anything until those people have that maximum flow. All above that would be the Government’s, because it then would be the proprietor. Mr. BARHAM. How can you make that out? Mr. Kinc. You have to make the measurements. Mr. BARHAM. I don’t mean that; that is easy. But how can you make out, if the Government constructs a reservoir here and catches the flood water, how can you make out that they will not be required to let those flood waters into the stream? Mr. KinG. They have got them, then, by being the proprietor. Our laws recognize an appropriation in July , an appropriation in August, and an appropriation in May upon the same stream. Many men have rights to water in May and do not have any rights to the water in July. “Mr. BARHAM. But you have to divert the water where the ditches are all ready to divert if. Mr. Ray. If the theory advanced is true, you advance an argument that would knock this whole scheme in the head at once. This ink- stand, we will say, is a reservoir of water; all the water available is turned into the reservoir. Here are millions of acres of land immedi- ately below that that the Government purposes to irrigate and pur- poses to sell for homesteads; they get around the water in here and open up their ditches; they sell to a few men up here [indicating] 10,000 aeres, and then they sell to these people down here, and they commence irrigation and it uses up all the water to irrigate these little farms up here, covering a tenth of it, or may be a quarter of it. The rest of it goes dry. These men have no benefit whatever; or, if you undertake the whole, then it is not sufficient to irrigate the whole and you render the whole worthless and your whole scheme goes wrong. Mr. REEDER. When they build that reservoir they know what they can irrigate and they irrigate every foot they propose to and no more. Mr. KinGc. I can give you an illustration of a stream that irrigates 2,000 acres of ground in June and July and about 3,000 acres in May and April. Ifwe had enough land there close by we ¢ eet irrigate 7,000 or 8,000 aeres in April and May; and if wee ‘ould store that water and let it come down later, instea dof only having enough for 2,000 acres later in the season we could irrigate 5,000 or 6,0G0 acres. The Gov- ernment knows now that the maximum appropriation of water upon that stream is 3,000 aeres in high water and 2,000 acres in low water. It knows it has the right by husbanding the water to have all the surplus which it husbands; therefore it has got to figure ae giving to those people there 3,000 acres in spring and enough for 2 5000 in August; but all the balance it can have and do what it pleases with, and by building a reservoir it can store enough to have 6,000 in July, Mr. Ray. Who is to have the first right to water out of these reser- voirs on these publie lands? Mr. Kina. Whoever the Government determines. If the Govern- ment builds a reservoir it can determine who shall be the beneficiaries, who shall be the beneficial users and have the usufruct. The CHAIRMAN. The Government would be the proprietor under your law? : Mr. Kina. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. You would not have to carry it on the land? Mr. Kine. But I think if the Government manifested no disposition ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. Tot to sell it or lease it, it would be appropriated, and the first ones would have it. ; Mr. REEDER. And some of these big companies could appropriate that water and thus make it profitable to them, immensely so, but we are trying to provide that no man can appropriate over 80 acres. Mr. Kina. Yet the law recognizes a reasonable time for the man to get the water and convert it to his use—to get the land and appropri- ate the water. Mr. Ray. Does not this land that you propose to irrigate take up water very rapidly? Mr. KING. Yes, some of it does; some is clay. soil. Mr. WILSON. Generally speaking, it does. Mr. Ray. In most localities there is not much limit to the amount it will take up? Mr. Kina. That is it, but little by little the requisitions by the land for water are less and less. I know some land that once had to be irri- gated to-day has to be drained. Mr. Ray. And those lands up there would absorb a great deal more water than they needed? Mr. KinG. No, the law forbids the application of more than is being used, and if it was being wasted it would not be regarded as a bene- ficial use and the owner would be enjoined. Mr. REEDER. Anotherthing. They measure that water as certainly as you can measure oats you feed your horse. Mr. Kine. They estimate that so many inches of water running a certain length of time will irrigate a certain amount of land, and above that it is waste, and the courts now are holding the irrigators down to the scientific testimony as to the use of water upon the land. The last case I tried involving that question brought out testimony to show what the use of the water was. Those men said that they should have so much water and then experts went on the stand and said “one-half of that is sufficient,” and cut the farmers down one-half. Mr. MAXWELL. It seems to me this discussion illustrates very much more strongly than any argument I can make that if you undertake to imagine difficulties you can imagine more in a day than can be explained in a thousand years; and we will never get the problem solved, because there will always be some new difficulty suggested. If you will take it up by localities and go on the'ground and find the actual place, rather than imagine it, you can find more places where this law can be put in force and the land be reclaimed than you ean accomplish in the way of reclamation, by this other theory, in ten years. I earnestly urge that this be made the keynote of this dis- cussion. Take the one point brought here—the rights of the riparian owner. This whole question was brought up and deeided in the Lux case in California. That case occupied many months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars before it was settled. They decided that while the law recognized riparian rights existing in C ‘alifornia, they whit- tled it away, and it only exists as a fiction because the Supreme Court has lately decided that the limit of the riparian owner’s rights is the limit of his beneficial use. I have told you what you could do in Arizona—that you could take land there which is now a desert and make it worth millions of dol- lars, and that the Government could get the money back as fast as they can reclaim the land. Take it over in California. Judge Barham referred to a place yes- 122 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. terday where there is not a drop of water used to-day—a place that is simply a natural reservoir. You can take the water there out of a tunnel and turn it into a valley—the Honey Lake Valley—simply take it out of the mouth of your tunnel into a narrow mountain stream. There are no complications to be met with there at all. That is Gov- ernment land, and you dig your canal out there and there are no intervening rights, no complications; you decide how much land you will irrigate, and you simply put the water on it. There are many such cases. If we can not commence with the easy places we will never get through all the complications that have been suggested among the reasons why the States and private capital have not sue- ceeded. The question was asked yesterday, ‘‘ Why can not private capital do this?” For two reasons; first, because the majority of cases will not be a profit te the investor as such, and private capital seeks a profit. In an irrigation scheme there is first a promoter’s profit, then an investor’s profit, then a bond-buyer’s profit, then the interest charges; and before they have the first settler on the land the price of the land is so high they can not pay it, and they go into bankruptey. That has been the experience of one case after another. Another reason. The law of the arid region to-day is—and in the State of California, if you go there to-day, they will tell you that is the chief reason Why private capital will not build irrigation works, that no law on earth will lead the people of California to forsake that constitutional provision. They would rather that no money would come there and be invested than to put the chain around their necks that the water company owns the water. They would rather that no more works be built, and they will say to those companies, ‘‘ keep your money; we do not want your investment,” rather than give up their constitutional right. That is the condition, those are the reasons. You can go into any State and the Government can come in and build these works and take the water out in main line canals, so that the settlers can do Ww hat the early settlers did in Utah, what they did in California in the San Joaquin Valley, what they did in Idaho—dig their own ditches and put the water on the land and raise crops and get rich; and it was when that reached its limit, when that could not be done any more, that they began to get into trouble, and it began to be developed that private capital could not control these wor ks and do what the Govy- ernment has to do. What is it that we ask the Government to do? Nothing more than What nature did for the early settlers. Store the flood waters, take the waters that can not be taken from these great canyons and rivers by private capital out upon the prairie by the main-line ditches, so that the people can go there and put their plows in the ground. That is it. One advocate says the Government should carry water to the point where private enterprise can handle the water. What private enter- prise? The land speculator or the settler? I say the settler. I say that it is the duty of this Government that it owes its people to-day to put that great domain in shape so that men who have knowledge and industry and strong right arms, such as the earlier settlers had, can 2o there and build their own ditches, and that is what they will do when the Government builds these reservoirs. But what would be the case in Wyoming to-day if the Government should build these reservoirs? There is comparatively little land in Wyoming or any other State where, if the State builds nothing but a ° ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 1s reservoir, the settler can get a drop of it. The speculator would get in and by some proposition build a great canal and take a profit out of the farm—tax the farmers for that to such an extent that it will take them a generation to earn that. What the Government should do is to bring the water to a point where the farmers can build their own canals and use it throughout their farms and homes. In conclusion, I wish to call attention to an extract from a report by Hon. Charles D. Walcott, of the United States Geological Survey, relating to the bill introduced by Mr. Newlands (H. R. 14088). This brings out clearly some of the reasons why, in the opinion of an officer of the executive branch of the Government, such a bill would be of immediate advantage. EXTRACT FROM REPORT BY HON. CHARLES D. WALCOTT, DIRECTOR UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. The bill provides for the beginning of reclamation by the use of funds derived from the country in which the works are to be built. It also sets a limit to the expenditure and permits the steady growth by the refunding of expenditures and continual addition, making pos- sible a systematic and economical development. Even though the amount available for construction should at first be small, it is appar- ent that the ultimate outgrowth will be large and that the reclaimed lands will be offered to the public so gradually that there will be no disturbance of industrial conditions. There has been in the past an apprehension that the reclamation of the arid public domain would bring the agricultural lands of the West into competition with those of the East. This fear has been due to ignorance of the fact that the products from irrigated lands are essen- tially different from those from humid lands, and do not reach the same market; but even if there should be competition along a few lines, this will not be injurious, if brought about by slow, systematic development contemplated through the arid-land reclamation fund, Attention is called to the fact that the bill under consideration does not provide for maintenance and final disposal of the works. It may be wise at the present time not to attempt to solve this class of prob- lems, as it will probably be several years after such a bill is passed before they will arise. In the meantime, experience will have been acquired, so that the Secretary of the Interior can make definite rec- ommendations growing out of thorough consideration of the problems. The investigations which have been carried on by the United States Geological Survey, extending over a period of thirteen years, have been mainly in the line of ascertaining the facts as to the possibilities of reclamation, such as the flow of streams and location of reservoir sites. As the outgrowth of this long-continued study, it seems desirable that some plan, such as that proposed by the bill under discussion, be fol- lowed to bring about gradual reclamation of lands susceptible of reclamation, but which can not be utilized if dependence is placed upon private or corporate enterprise. There are many localities where work of this kind may be undertaken as the need and opportunity arises. While there are many places where the Government can reclaim publie land, there are also other localities where the water supply must be regulated in order to render possible the full development of the land now in whole or in part in private ownership. Where such con- ditions exist, it is apparent that such a bill does not apply. On long 194 ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. rivers, like the Platte and Arkansas, whose waters even in time of ordinary flood have been appropriated, there is no probability that return can be made to the reclamation fund, and a different treatment must be accorded. There is still another class of conditions where the Government is a considerable landowner, the public lands being interspersed with areas in private possession. Here it often occurs that the water rights are exceedingly complicated, and, as pointed out by the experts who have been studying the laws and institutions of irrigated countries, there is necessity for mutual adjustment and understanding before the irriga- ble area can be increased through water storage. The possibility of building storage works would act as the strongest conceivable induce- ment for these people to unite to secure equitable distribution of the water under existing laws, thus enabling the Intericr Department to know definitely what claims exist prior to those which may be acquired from the water stored in the reservoir. The object to be attained by legislation proposed by these bills is evidently that of bringing within reach of new settlers upon the publie domain a permanent w ater supply, s such as that found by the pioneers. They had merely to take out canals and diverting ditches and thus enjoy a priority of supply now guaranteed by custom and law. These opportunities have been utilized, and the later comers find themselves confronted with a task enormously greater than that of their prede- cessors and far beyond their means. It is possible to bring about, through storage and water conservation, conditions resembling those encountered by the first settlers and make possible a steady influx of population, who by united effort can take the waters artificially regu- lated and carry them to their lands. In other words, the operations of these proposed bills create conditions which will give to the settlers on these arid lands a sufficient water supply on easy terms, thus ena- bling them to make homes and with their own labor and teams build the distributing ‘anals and laterals necessary to bring the water to the land. The advantage of bills of the character proposed is that it enables a development of the country without disturbing the existing status or awakening justifiable uneasiness. as to future conditions. There has grown up in irrigated countries a fear that the existing priorities of water rights may be disturbed by the building of new and larger systems of irrigation. If the Government, in pursuance of a policy to permit the increase of homes on the public lands, proposes to build reservoirs, every reasonable assurance should be given the people already settled that they have nothing to fear, but, on the other hand, that their vested rights and existing customs will be guarded and not disturbed by the bringing under irrigation of additional areas of fertile but arid land. It has often been pointed out that increase of irrigated areas and extension of irrigation upon the pubhe lands is now to a certain extent prevented by local jealousies and defective methods of distri- bution of the water, and that a larger prosperity would be enjoyed if by any means the farmers along a stream could be induced to adjust their differences under some system of local control, such as that which exists in a few of the arid-land States. There could be no stronger inducement held out to the States and to the irrigators to perfect the local control than the understanding that water conserva- tion would begin only when such efficient local control had been provided, ARID LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 125 The proposed bills do not provide for the charging of interest nor for the hasty pushing forward of the works to completion in order to bring about an early return, such as is essential to the suceess of corporate enterprise. In such matters private capital is concerned with obtaining the largest return for the smallest expenditure, while the spirit of the bills under consideration is evidently to bring about the largest development and the greatest good tothe greatest number consistent with an economical expenditure. As a result it appears from the examinations already made that where private capital would find it expedient to reclaim, say, a thousand acres from a given source in order to make the largest return, the Government works, built with a view to the best dev elopment of the country, might reclaim ultimately two or three times as much. From the very moment that private capital is raised and surveys are begun up to the time that the works are completed the interest charges accrue and must be met out of the proceeds of the enterprise. So that it several years are spent in preliminary work and in final construction the accrued interest may add from 10 to 50 per cent to the total cost. Such charges, it is assumed, are not contemplated against the reclamation fund, and thus, although the works built by this fund may be more elaborate and permanent than those built by corporations, yet from these considerations it is apparent that in the long run they need not be more expensive. From this consideration it appears, as before noted, that thousands, or even millions, of acres ‘an be reclaimed under laws of this character where corporate enter- prise would not enter, or at most undertake the work in a small way, reclaiming only a portion of the total area. INDEX. Page. Agricultural Department, irrigation inves- tigations of, appropriations and leg- DS SIUM OTM 5 tere wm mcye eres vse et cies 49-51 Alabama, inland commerce in, appropria- UL Moh) anes sos che Seema 79, 80 swamp lands ceded to................-.- 77-78 Appropriations, inland commerce.......... 79-80 investigations of water resources of UMUbed StatesMos 2.2... bec eee ce 43-53 irrigating ditches (Indian Office) ...... 49 irrigation investigations (Department of PATRI G)) | ene eye ernie ois cieeeraiai ene 51 irrigation surveys (Geological Survey). 45 reservoirs on headwaters of Mississippi River (River and Harbor)..........- vA stream measurements (Geological Sur- EME) mines Tahaterc reich die axe atavevseehe ate eo eieie 46 Appropriations proposed .................-. 5-7, 12,13, 14, 17-19, 53-54, 74-75, 85-86 Arid and semiarid region, acreage of 13 ROUSE TAT CL AT eretayne ocsieyayo ways Ss ; af SS UTES C! Aes wee. net se cise wcemiats ses 12 13 Arid and semiarid States and Territories, STEOD ear ok ce Ree Me Ae < ao see 7 Arid-land-grant commission of Montana, OWES Olen. 5) as Sere scat ees Soa 113 Arid-land-reclamation fund, text of bill BEOWIGIN SE TOP. o.4-6cc.. 522s occ ese cocks 6-7 Arid Jands, Government ownership of, ex- ROTM O Renee oA eerie ee aeeircmisi gees 39 Arid States, population possible in......... 25-26 MESCEVOL SILes Mes es = 20..c cose eee cdi ce 25-26 Arizona, appropriation proposed for storage old See ee Peaeaer 17 appropriation proposed for surveys and investigations in ...........2....... 18 irrigable land in ..................... 109, 110 irrigation methods pursued in ......... 90 irrigation in, feasibility and value of... - 32, public lands in, acreage of ............. 77,93 reclamation in, by individuals ......... 14 reservoir proposed on Gila River in, cost ANd CAPACITY OL. fe cccccccicceccce ces 30 reservoir proposed on Gila River in, dis- GUSSION Of 2c esiae <2 21 95, 96-97, 105-106, 109 reservoir proposed on Gila River in, leg- islation regarding .........-.....--- 57 reservoir proposed on Gila River in, text of bill for construction of .........- 74-75 reservoir surveys and artesian investi- gations in, estimated cost of........ 53 Page. Arkansas, inland commerce in, appropria- LON Oe ee eee ene see 79 swamp lands ceded to.................. 77-78 Arkansas River, character of water of...... 40 diversion of waters of.................- 124 SEG DASE IGP eee aee ee toot meas toe 26 Arkansas Valley, underground waters in .. 38-41 Artesian waters. See Underground waters. Artesian wells, appropriations for construe- LOU Ole eee ete nates er 47, 48, 49-50, 51 GOSHOE SIM sca scene ects pb emarae 39, 40 Barham, Hon.J.A., bill introduced by, dis- GUSSIOTL Oltaeseenwircetss sows ce eeereene 94 NEWIEMISS: OV). a siomrertacie teas gis cetera eae 9 10, 16-17, 19-20, 33, 56, 59, 60-61, 67, 68, 72, 73- 74, 84, 96, 100, 101, 102, 106, 115,117,118, 119 Bills introduced, text of.... 5-7,17-19, 61-62, 74-75 California, appropriations proposed for stor- age works and investigations in .... 18 inland commerce in, appropriations for 79 population in sections of ........2...--- 110 public lands in, acreage of 77 TESELVOINISIGES 1M: 22 Jone dede skeet -nen 27,28 reservoir surveys contemplated in, esti- MPLeG SCOst Ole: Aero sacs ne eee 53 | reservoirs built by Government in..... vA reservoirs proposed in, cost and capac- i ThA 0) ics Semcon y a 28-29, 30 swamp lands ceded to...-..-...-..--.--- 77-78 underground waters in, estimated cost of examination and mapping of.... 53 | California and Neyada, forest reserve in Truckee River Basin in, need of... 29 water storage in, interstate complica- PONS Ol. aes. seeee es 27-28, 100-102, 114-115 Canals built by Government ............... 79-80 Carey Act, features and workings of-...... 66, 83, 108, 110-111, 113-114 LER bOlS Sc comin oa so ore soe eese oes 111-112 Colorado, appropriations proposed for stor- age works and investigations in.... 18 public lands in, acreage of............. 77 reseryoir surveys in, estimated cost of.. 53 underground waters in........---...--- 38-42 underground waters in, estimated cost of examination and mapping of.... 53 Yonnecticut, inland commerce in, appro- CIA OMS re ace gee sree sear see Ae) Gost of artesian Wells. .ccciccisccissenasees = 39, 40 Cost of reclamation........ 13-14, 24, 25, 26, 55, 66 Dakota, underground waters in.........--- 38-42 Dakota sandstone, extent and characters of. 38742 127 ad 128 INDEX. Page Darton, N. H., statement of ................ 37-42 Delaware, inland commerce in, appropria- THUG) Gt: Wb 18) eee ee Ses Saree ne 79 District of Columbia, inland commerce in, appropriations for...-...-...-.-.:-- 79 Florida, inland commerce in, appropria- aR@ Ok: 00) yaewea es Seas a RR oe a 79, 80 SWhHinp TONGS CONed 1072-225. eects 2-=- 77-78 Forest reserves in United States, data re- PAVING Gs sey Beoeee es qc Saetese eee SS vP4 Forests, effect of, on water storage ........- 2-74 preservation of, amount expended an-- NuUally TO" ¢ Pads San citene Ges esa sce 72 preservation of, value of ........- 21-22, 72-74 Geological Survey, irrigation surveys and IN: VESHIPALIONS: DY se. v2cescece vet wee 45-46 irrigation surveys and investigations by, appropriations for 45,48 DUWEle OlessesusaGu sen ceaess seoseeees 43-45 reservoir surveys by ...-..-.--.-. 28-30, 94-95 stream measurements by, appropria- PASTEL Oat Oe tea a a eerie ore 46,48 Georgia, inland commerce in, appropria- GIOHS LOCC eb onkdteemacceree te fan cone 7 Gila River, Ariz., reservoir proposed on, cost and capacity of............---- 30 reservoir proposed on, legislation re- PACU Pe Dig we co oes x sce wh teeeweae 57 reservoir proposed on, text of bill for DONSiTUCHONIOL 62.4536. e ee ane wees te 74-75 reseryoir survey on, discussion of.. 95, 96-97, 105-106, 109 lands in Governmental reclamation of POLALOT COUMUFICS oe se diaieis cress aed 78 Grazing lands, acreage Of.........-......--- 93 Humboldt River, Nev., characteristics of .. 15 irrigation possibilities of ............--. 15 reseryoirs proposed on, text of bill cov- ering construction of .............-. 5-6 water storage and irrigation works on, PUISCUSSIG Ole dere ws 28s beg See vee 7-8 water storage and irrigation works on, text of bill providing for ........... j-6 Humboldt River (Lower), Nev., reservoirs proposed on, cost and capacity of .. 30 Idaho, agricultural development and possi- PRUPTAS OL oc: e eer Fi% pn rade 2 arc er 26-27 appropriations proposed for investiga- ROG UL oe iicp deeds te ehanlcce nda nsgcss © 18 inland commerce in, appropriations for. 79) public lands in, acreage of ..........-.- it reservoir surveys in, estimated cost of.. oh] underground waters in.........--.----- 42 Hlinois, inland commerce in, appropriations POE eee asa ay see voeeae ance ie 79, 80 swamp lands ceded t0.......2......s2-5 77-78 Indiana, inland commerce in, appropria- EIOTIS LUT. gene eo ane ee 79, 80 sivnimp lands Geded 00-2... 22: dc%2 scence 77-78 Indian Office, irrigating ditches constructed by, legislation and appropriations 2) ee ee a 169 Inland commerce in United States, appro- DULG OTE FOS . ony oe Sercarteidin nde eee 79-80 Iowa, inland commerce in, appropriations PO alesis aC eee ose pesos a eorans 79, 80 swanip lands: ceded to... ..2..2.-..22.--: 77-78 Page. Irrigable land in arid and semiarid region. 13 Irrigation ditches constructed by Indian Office, appropriations for........... 49 léeislation t0V epucs.s. 5 cases os eee 46-49: Irrigation investigations by Department of Agriculture, appropriations for .... 51 legislation fore ...<. cc s5..eeeeneeeeeee 49-51 Irrigation surveys and investigations by Geological Survey, appropriations POPS. tes's ce kesess woes eee 45, 48, 51 HIStORY OF 3300 [J aos. ono 2s eerie 43-46 Jenkins, Hon. J.J., remarks by ........ 9-10, 11,13 Kansas, appropriation proposed for drilling best Wellin. 2222222-- 5. nee 18 artesian test well proposed in, estimated COSst OL OTIInE G.-22-2- 252g eee St inland commerce in, appropriations TOPs is een escent oee te oe 79 public lands in,acredge Of 22.20.2222 226 77 underground waters IN ......<<22000ss02 38-42 Kentucky, inland commerce in, appropria- tlOUSfOP 3 .cs cas gee aeeeeass ose eee 79, 80 King, Hon: W.H.,; remarks by ..225- 224.000 58, 102-103, 106, 107, 116-117, 118, 119-121 Lake Tahoe, Cal.-Nev., diversion and utili- ZAtiON Ol, 26+ sts .eaee ee eee 27-28, 83 Louisiana, inland ecommerce in, appropria- HORS 40f esse nene ees 79, 80 77-718 swamp lands ceded to Lower Humboldt River, Ney., reservoirs proposed on, cost and capacity of .. 30 | {0 EE SR ee ee Dn = 79 Maryland, inland commerce in, appropria- Ons [00 ..sy sesh sete. see 79 Massachusetts, inland commerce in, appro- PYIAMODS LO! . 2.3225 seek se ee ees 79 Maxwell, Geo. H., statements of. .........-- 31-37, 94-99, 108-125 Mead, Elwood, statements of ......-. S$8-93, 99-108 Michigan, inland commerce in, appropria- LODS [00-22 pes een kee ee eee 79, 80 as oe 71-18 swamp lands ceded to Minnesota, inland commerce in, appropria- ELOTIS TON sac xicia ee wterere 2s-= 2, 0)3i orga iss reservoirs built by Government in ..... 21 swamp lands ceded t0. . 24.2 scccecee snes Maye Mississippi, inland commerce in, appropria- tIONA TOT: 62 ¢.< talnos ss te oc eee 79-SU swamp lands ceded to......--.........- 77-78 Mississippi River, reservoirs built by Gov- ernment on headwaters of .......-- 21 Missouri, swamp lands ceded to .........-- 77-78 Mondell, Hon. F. W., bill introduced by, disenssion Of.2\ <2... 5 eee $2-83 bill introduced by, dedicating proceeds of sales of public lands to construc- tion of irrigation works, ete., text $F sured’ sigials'wiele aac cn oeremaetcca es ene 61-62 Statements! OL... cc. ccicnicaeieie shew 61-71, 81-85 Montana, appropriations proposed for sur- VOYS; O60); IU ccs ok sins 2 sacmersenunaees 18-19 arid-land-grant commission of, powers DE sé ccitisss cacrg dtscohins Shoes ace oe eae he} diversion of waters of St. Mary River in 23 public lands in, acreage of 77 INDEX. 129 Page. Page. Montana, reservoirs proposed in, cost and Oklahoma, commutation of homesteads in. 87 GAD UGUUTVNOU sess ricierclemteee sie siee ne 30 | Oregon, agricultural possibilities of........ 26-27 reservoir surveys in, estimated cost of appropriations proposed for investiga- COMIN Stes os ceo neee sess ames e 54 LOM SU Me Scere ce et as a te eee 19 underground waters in................. 42 inland commerce in, appropriations for. 79,80 Nebraska, appropriation proposed for drill- publie lands in, acreage of .......2..... 77 ing test well in 19 reservoir sites in, estimated cost of ex- 7 artesian test well in, estimated cost of PlOraAWONLOL. -s20552 ssa sce ce (ligt hat: qepe ete aA Ieee eset d4 swamp lands ceded to public lands in, acreage of.............- Th underground waters in, estimated cost underground waters in..............-..- 38-12 of continuing examination of 2.2.2... 5d Nevada, agricultural development of....-- 14-16 | Pennsylvania, inland commerce in, appro- appropriations proposed for storage PPIBGIONS TOR eo scence Scoses ele -- 79, 80 WORKS CLCs lM csqcince mn eecteawama mes 18-19 | Percolation. See Seepage. irrigation possibilities in .........-..... 15 | Pima Indians, facts regarding.............. 75-76 population of, present and past........ 14 | Pinchot, Gifford, statement of....._........ 72-74 precious metals in, production of....-.. 14 | Platte River, diversion of waters of ........ 124 public lands in, acreage of...........-- ac) | Public lands; acreage of. --.2-.222.0.2ccccee 77 reservoirs proposed in, costand capacity SAIES!Otiea c= aecenisecs tice ec ss 12, 18, 56, 80, 86-87 10) [eS one Se POR 28-29,30 | Ray, Hon. G. W., remarks by ..........-... 89, reservoirs proposed in, text of bill coy- 115-116, 117, 118, 120 ering construction of........2...... 5-6 | Reclamation fund, text of bill providing for. 6-7 reservoir surveys in, estimated cost of Reclamation of lands by foreign goyvern- GO TNGUOUUTLIN D2 So a see cto cee la od IG TVS ere are tate eeetacmic auto Ne abe 78 water storage and irrigation works in, Reeder, Hon. W. A., remarks by .........-- 39, text of bills providing for.......... 5-7 41,42, 102, 105, 120, 121 Nevada and California, forest reserve in Reno, Ney., agricuitural development in .. 28 Truckee River Basin in, need of... - 29 | Reservoir sites in arid States, number of... 25-28 segregation of landsin................- Water storage in, interstate complica- TONS: Ollo2 ace ecese Newell, F. H., remarks by......... SiMGEMEMLS:Ol choc smee scan sesame 20-30, New Hampshire, inland ecommerce in, ap- PLOPTIAUONS TOR sc Pe ee eer ee D4 public lands 1; MCNCGASE Of cence ces 77 North Platte River, Nebr., irrigation iVKeyMovardisey rah ol ck: emer ae A eee eae 91 Ohio, inland commerce in, appropriations 1G Oe nS cao a eee A a a ee 79, 80 swamp lands ceded to............------ 77,18 (in fin fi @ WAL Fae | (0% Reservoir surveys completed or partially completed eiesfes ate mela Fae ae ae Pee 7-05 Reservoir surveys in arid lands, estimated COSU OL) 22.1.0 2a bale cite oe ee ee 58 Reservoir surveys, Work accomplished and amount expended for Reservoir surveys and artesian investiga- tions, estimated cost of continuing. 53-54 Reservoirs built by Government, location ANG COSW OL. eon tesee as henieese = 21 Rhode Island, inland commerce in, appro- TIMMONS lO tes see ae eee ees erent se 79 Rio Grande, volume of, fluctuations in .... 90 Riparian rights, discussion of... 9-11, 114-120, 121 River and harbor improvements, amounts expended fors:.2:.-.6sc..cces-2 60, 79-80 PG RUWIGS 10 femeae rise so eee re 22, 23, 26, 33-34, 60-61, 65-64, 69, 71, 80, 84, 86 Rock Creek, Ney., reservoir proposed on, COst aud Capacity Ol. 2-22. s22s2. 0225 30 water storage and irrigation works on, CUSCUSSIOM Ole: o- see sce seen coca ace 7-8 water storage and irrigation works on, text of bill providing for ........... 5-6 St. Mary River, Mont., proposed diversion OLY EUGSnOL ass =e erence ee oe oe ee ele 23 Sales of public hinds 2.2.2.2... 12, 138, 56, 80, 86-87 San Carlos, Ariz., reservoir proposed near, See Gila River. Seepage, extent and value of............-- 24-96) 35-36, 54-55, 121-192 Segregation of lands 5, G, 11, 24, 44 Segregations, State desert land, legislation OTS oe ce icwnc coe clan cee Sees iasisnelees ss 65-66 Semiarid and arid States and Territories, US 0 Leese ee esis cs alten oreta's eas 7 south Carolina, inland commerce in, appro- AQULSUGE GM SO IN ye clearer sie sh ejeeea lalate 79, 80 South Dakota, appropriation proposed for : artesian test well in ............-..- 19 130 INDEX. Page. Page. South Dakota, artesian test well in, esti- | Virginia, inland commerce in, appropria- mated cost of drilling .............- 54 | - HONS: fOr ec. Se esass ween ee ee 79, 80 public lands in, acreage of ...........-- Ke. \) WaleottaG. Dy, quoted. 2.25. 4ss2-enseneees 123-125 South Platte River, seepage along........-. 26 Washington, appropriations proposed for Stock raising, features of.................-- at INVESHPALONSIN.<.2..s acaceeaeeses se 19 Stream measurements by Geological Sur- artesian eonditions in, estimated cost of vey, appropriations for........-. 46,48, 51 examination: Of: 2. i... 2.2222 le sees 54 WISCOM Ol cect an eaa oe ota e scence ne te 45-16 inland cominerce in, appropriations for. 79, 80 Swamp lands, cession of, to various States. 77-78 public lands in, acreage of .........22.. 77 reclamation of, by States, failure of.... 78 reservoir surveys in, estimated cost of... D4 Tennessee, inland commerce in, appropria- underground waters in......-....-..... 42 TIQTIS TOF s terrae s tees =opemes ee oe 79,80 | Water conservation, cost of ...........----. 5d Texas, appropriation proposed for water Water resources of United States, appropria- EPR CLL rte eae wy arcreares o's aeeiee 19 tions for investigation of ..... 43-46, 49-53 inland commerce in, appropriations for. 79,80 | Wilson, Hon.E., remarks by. 10,18, 14, 64, 65, 89, 119 reservoir surveys in, estimated cost of.. 54 | Wilson, Hon. J. F., bill introduced by, for Tongue, Hon. T. H., remarks by .. 82, 117-118, 119 construction of reservoir near San TG016, WGOVews Hon GLIBO Se... cas0 ses -eeseees 111 Carlos: Ariz, text Of:....22...5 ----- 74-75 Underground waters, appropriations pro- StHTEMVEN t Ole occas a ence curds ete 74-81 posed for development of.. 17-19, 42, 53-54 | Wisconsin, inland commerce in, appropria- extent and characters of, in arid and fIONS 16L"...- 2essec cs see cde eee eee 79, 80 SEMIATIA StALCS. woes ssc ceca ccs cs 37-42 reservoirs constructed by Government investigations of, and reservoir surveys, ADL osdva%s.craia's ociaa-aca a a's ae ee val estimated cost of continuing ....... 53-54 swamp lands ceded to...............--. 77-78 Utah, appropriations proposed for investi- Wyoming, appropriations proposed for sur- GAWMOUS IM eccess-atsces- ceca eennee soe 19 veys and storage works in.. population in sections of ............--. 110 public lands in, acreage of............. public lands in, acreage of ......:...... Hi reservoir proposed in, cost and capacity reservoir surveys in, estimated cost of. . 54 Ols2252cets <4) sesd.ts octane ae 30 Vermont, inland commerce in, appropria- reservoir surveys in, estimated cost of. . od POMS TOM oe os cushaeuls cose = saiseaaele 79 underground waters in........-.......- 42 @ OF CONGRES Gaui UU o000093be%9rb