The farm unit should not be less than 2,560 acres; the pasturage farms need small bodies of irrigable land; the division of these lands should be controlled by topographic features to give water fronts; residences of the pasturage lands should be grouped; the pasturage farms cannot be fenced—they must be occupied in common.
The homestead and preëmption methods are inadequate to meet these conditions. A general law should be enacted to provide for the organization of pasturage districts, in which the residents should have the right to make their own regulations for the division of the lands, the use of the water for irrigation and for watering the stock, and for the pasturage of the lands in common or in severalty. But each division or pasturage farm of the district should be owned by an individual; that is, these lands could be settled and improved by the “colony” plan better than by any other. It should not be understood that the colony system applies only to such persons as migrate from the east in a body; any number of persons already in this region could thus organize. In fact very large bodies of these lands would be taken by people who are already in the country and who have herds with which they roam about seeking water and grass, and making no permanent residences and no valuable improvements. Such a plan would give immediate relief to all these people.
This district or colony system is not untried in this country. It is essentially the basis of all the mining district organizations of the west. Under it the local rules and regulations for the division of mining lands, the use of water, timber, etc., are managed better than they could possibly be under specific statutes of the United States. The association of a number of people prevents single individuals from having undue control of natural privileges, and secures an equitable division of mineral lands; and all this is secured in obedience to statutes of the United States providing general regulations.
Customs are forming and regulations are being made by common consent among the people in some districts already; but these provide no means for the acquirement of titles to land, no incentive is given to the improvement of the country, and no legal security to pasturage rights.
If, then, the irrigable lands can be taken in quantities to suit purchasers, and the colony system provided for poor men who wish to coöperate in this industry; if the timber lands are opened to timber enterprises, and the pasturage lands offered to settlement under a colony plan like that indicated above, a land system would be provided for the Arid Region adapted to the wants of all persons desiring to become actual settlers therein. Thousands of men who now own herds and live a semi-nomadic life; thousands of persons who now roam from mountain range to mountain range prospecting for gold, silver, and other minerals; thousands of men who repair to that country and return disappointed from the fact that they are practically debarred from the public lands; and thousands of persons in the eastern states without employment, or discontented with the rewards of labor, would speedily find homes in the great Rocky Mountain Region.
In making these recommendations, the wisdom and beneficence of the homestead system have been recognized and the principles involved have been considered paramount.
To give more definite form to some of the recommendations for legislation made above, two bills have been drawn, one relating to the organization of irrigation districts, the other to pasturage districts. These bills are presented here. It is not supposed that these forms are the best that could be adopted; perhaps they could be greatly improved; but they have been carefully considered, and it is believed they embody the recommendations made above.
A BILL to authorize the organization of irrigation districts by homestead settlements upon the public lands requiring irrigation for agricultural purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be lawful for any nine or more persons who may be entitled to acquire a homestead from the public lands, as provided for in sections twenty-two hundred and eighty-nine to twenty-three hundred and seventeen, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes of the United States, to settle an irrigation district and to acquire titles to irrigable lands under the limitations and conditions hereinafter provided.
Sec. 2. That it shall be lawful for the persons mentioned in section one of this act to organize an irrigation district in accordance with a form and general regulations to be prescribed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, which shall provide for a recorder; and said persons may make such by-laws, not in conflict with said regulations, as they may deem wise for the use of waters in such district for irrigation or other purposes, and for the division of the lands into such parcels as they may deem most convenient for irrigating purposes; but the same must accord with the provisions of this act.