But the great danger is that what is known as private enterprise, which in the West has been as a rule simply the legal twin of highway robbery, will seize the situation which this irrigation problem so temptingly presents. Some of the investment companies are already becoming aware of the possibilities, and are taking advantage of the farmers by buying their land at a nominal price, and it is not improbable that speculators within a year will appropriate (“convey” the wise it call) vast stretches in the Jim Valley, crowding out the present owners and keeping the land comparatively idle for years. This is the peculiar peril of the Dakotas, and the Farmers’ Alliance would do well to spend some of their superfluous energy on a co-operative plan of introducing irrigation, else they will be at the mercy of a greedy crowd of embryo Jay Goulds. There is, indeed, no reason why the nation, if it can appropriate money for river and harbor bills, should not appropriate so small a sum as $5,000,000 to an enterprise of such moment as this, and if the Republican party had a dying glimmer of their olden shrewdness, they would have tightened their relaxing hold on the affections of the Dakotans by a measure of this kind. But so cumbersome is our present system of republican government, that it would take too long in this case to set governmental aid in motion. So, as it is, the Dakotas are between the devil of drouth and the deep sea of further capitalistic oppression, their only hope of a fair solution lying in the township scheme.
Before parting with this theme, as indicative of what might be done with the drouth belt of the Dakotas, the following table deserves a comparative glance. It consists of the tax lists of several California counties before and after the application of irrigation.
| Counties. | 1879. | 1889. |
|---|---|---|
| Fresno | $6,354,596 | $25,387,173 |
| Los Angeles | 16,368,649 | 84,376,310 |
| Merced | 5,208,245 | 14,146,845 |
| Orange | 2,817,700 | 9,270,767 |
| San Bernardino | 2,576,973 | 23,267,955 |
| San Diego | 8,525,253 | 31,560,918 |
| Stanislaus | 6,232,368 | 15,594,003 |
| Solano | 2,651,367 | 6,966,007 |
| Tulare | 5,204,777 | 24,343,013 |
| Total | $55,939,928 | $234,912,991 |
A few words more on the first question of cost, which is one a practical mind is always asking and re-asking. The Aberdeen Daily News, which ought to know, for there are several wells in its neighborhood easy to study, states that a six-inch well can be put down for less than $2,300, and that any of the principal wells at Aberdeen, Hitchcock, Redfield, Woonsocket, Huron, or Yankton will irrigate six hundred and forty acres, which would bring the cost to less than $4.00 per acre for twelve inches of depth during the growing season. Mr. Hinds, of the Hinds ranch, has been charging adjacent farmers, however, only $1.00 per acre for water from his well, and considers it a paying investment. I cannot resist the temptation of closing this brief inquiry into and commentary upon this most important question by citing a picturesque passage from the Aberdeen Daily News:—
“The power of these wells is almost inconceivable. An iron bar eight feet long and two inches in diameter was accidentally dropped into the tubing of one of them, decreasing the flow for a short time, but it was soon ejected by the water with such force as to break the elbow of a strong iron pipe. When the well at Huron was first put down, no make of water mains was strong enough to withstand the full pressure of the water. The same may be said of nearly all the wells. The fact is that the artesian wells of this valley furnish the mechanical power of the world. This power requires no fuel, no engines, no repairs, no extra insurance. It never freezes up, nor blows up, nor dries up. It can be managed by a girl baby; $1,500 will furnish everlasting fifty horse-power. The wonder is that all the woolen, cotton, silk, and linen mills of the world do not rush to take possession of it. It is a Niagara Falls already harnessed for use. All the textile fabrics could be manufactured here cheaper than in any other part of the universe. The time will come when this will be recognized, and natural gas will be extinguished by the giant gushing wells in Dakota.”
This vivid writing, this rhetoric of artesian force, may be the result of an editorial fancy that has long bestridden a western boom, instead of tame old Pegasus; but, leaving out the manufacturing prospectus, there can be no gainsay of the statement that, with a million acres of the opulent Dakotan soil under the brilliant Dakotan sun, tended by two thousand artesian wells, the great drouth belt of the Northwest would be the richest agricultural area in the world.
REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES AND NEGLECTED CRIMES.
BY PROF. JOSEPH RODES BUCHANAN.