made a clause in the River and Harbor Bill passed in 1896, providing for the examining of reservoir sites in the West, with a view to establishing the question whether or not they were practicable and desirable for three things: First, improving the navigation of navigable rivers; second, providing water for irrigation of arid lands; third, preventing destructive floods. He says: "So we fought from one end of the country to the other. We had thirty senators, and year after year we got appropriations in the River and Harbor Bill in the Senate to build reservoirs. The Senate passed it, but the House, in which we had but one-tenth of the political power, turned us down, but it was not long ere the force of our strength made itself felt." The reader can judge the influence of this booster organization.

The State has found organization a good thing, though not until quite recently. The Washington Irrigation Institute was born January 14, 1914, with Hon. E. F. Benson as president during its entire life. The Institute was the outgrowth of the annual meetings of "operation and maintenance officials" of the Washington District of the Reclamation Service. The maintenance officials of private irrigation companies were invited, with the public officials, in October, 1912, to go into problems with which all were concerned. The purpose was to deal with phases of irrigation development in Washington: (1) construction and operation of irrigation systems, (2) preparation of land, methods of irrigation, (3) legislation that will permit greater agricultural expansion under irrigation. It, too, boasts of having accomplished something, and takes to itself the credit for the new water code and the present admirable irrigation district laws. The United States, with all its legal talent, is now displacing its "Water Users' Association" system by the "Irrigation District Law," as the best possible practice under which to operate. The Institute claims. to have secured even more. The last Legislature authorized the State College to select a site for an experiment farm, but provided no funds for the purchase of land or equipment. The college appointed a committee to investigate. As a result a farm of about eighty acres, a donation from the Northern Pacific Railroad with options from adjacent owners for 200 acres more, was located near Grandview and under the Government pumping plant for the Sunnyside Canal.

Through the agricultural associations considerable influence was weilded, as noted by the donations made by Congress from time to time for investigations on the part of the Agricultural Department. In 1900, an appropriation of $50,000 was made by Congress "to enable the Secretary of the Interior with the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate methods of utilization of irrigation waters in agricul

ture." And again in 1908, $150,000 to enable the "Secretary of Agriculture to investigate and report upon the best methods of irrigation and usage of irrigation waters. . . . and upon the use of different kinds of power for irrigation and drainage."

We find also the local organization as the Yakima Husbandry Association. In 1902, A. J. Splawn was the chairman of the executive committee. He brought out in a paper the fact that the grazing of hundreds of thousands of sheep on the head waters of the streams was affecting the supply and since agricultural interests were ten fold greater than the stock interests, this ought not to be allowed to continue. A set of resolutions were drawn up in consequence of these facts and sent to the Secretary of Agriculture.

During the early eighties the projects were built by local capital, and the stockholders of the companies were the men for whose ranches the water was to be used. These were a financial success and his attracted outside capital, and we have irrigation companies formed from outside capital who developed projects for the purpose of offering for sale to the land owners, water as a commodity. This period extends, in most states, from 1886 to 1898, but the State of Washington has continued this to the present. In the table given in the Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Agriculture and Immigration for January 1, 1896, there is shown the great number of companies operating independently of the land, and offering water as a commodity. They often took options on neighboring lands and sold it to settlers together with the water right.

The country became filled with land speculators who grabbed the land with no intention of buying a water right and settling, but holding it until some real settlers should come along willing to pay a handsome price for his relinquishment. The Canal Company could not tell a "real settler" from a speculator until it was ready to deliver the water, for then the “land grabber" wanted neither water nor title to a water right.

Many a company went under during the 1893 financial stress. To correct the evil of separate ownership of land and water and speculative possibilities, Congress passed the Carey Act which was to make possible a means of vesting the control of the land in the company building the irrigation project. The Bill was introduced by Senator Joseph Carey, of Wyoming. "This act ushers in the epoch of State and National aids in irrigation. It has had more far reaching effects in producing material development in the arid West than has any other single act of National legislation." (United States Experiment Station Report for 1910, p. 263). However true this may be for the

West, or for particular states in the West, not one project was completed under it in the State of Washington, for reasons shown later on.

Federal Government legislation as to reclaiming desert land had its beginning in 1877 as already discussed. In 1891, the 1877 Act was amended as follows: At the time of filing, a map is required showing mode of contemplated irrigation and showing source of water. The amount of land was limited to three hundred and twenty acres. No patent shall be issued until his assignors shall have expended in the necessary reclamation and cultivation thereof, by means of main canals and branch ditches, at least $3.00 per acre. One dollar at least shall be expended the first year, and not less than one dollar the second year and also during the third year. Another law was passed the same year to aid in the development of irrigation. This Act provided for the right of way through the public lands and reservations of the United States, to any canal or ditch company formed for the purpose of irrigation, and only organized under the laws of any state or territory which shall have filed with the Secretary of the Interior a copy of articles of incorporation. Maps of such canals, after ten miles have been built, shall be filed within twelve months of that time with the register of the land office.

These Acts were followed August 18, 1894, by the famous Carey Act, an act to aid the public land states in the reclamation of desert lands therein. By this act the Secretary of the Interior, with the approval of the President, was authorized and empowered, under proper application of the state, to conduct and agree with each of the states, to donate, grant and patent, free of cost, not exceeding one million acres in each state as the state might cause to be irrigated, reclaimed and 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 the act, as thoroughly as is required of citizens who enter under the said desert land law. The state was required to submit a map showing the mode of the contemplated irrigation and the course of the water, and was forbidden to lease or rent such lands; but might contract to secure reclamation, cultivation and settlement. No person could receive more than one hundred and sixty acres.

This State was enthusiastic and on March 22, 1895, an act was approved creating a Commission of Arid Lands, which began business on June 22, 1895, by establishing an office in North Yakima, the center of irrigation activities. H. K. Owens, an engineer, was secured and began in July a survey for a canal one hundred and fifty miles long and 85,566 acres were selected which had been withdrawn from the public domain. Water was to be taken from the Naches River. Then the

securing of contracts for construction of the irrigation works was in order, but here the weakness in the Federal law became more and more apparent as one attempt after another failed, for the land could be made the security but the security was faulty in the matter of attaining title; for patents to land could not be issued until actual operation and partial cultivation had taken place. Again, acceptance of the terms of the act required special legislation on the part of the state accepting the grant. The territorial experience with special legislation was such that our State Constitution prohibits special legislation. Then, too, the State was in no way protected in the assumption of its responsibility. This then led to the amendment passed June 11, 1896, which provided for a lien or liens created by the state to which such lands are granted, and when created shall be valid against each separate legal subdivision for the actual cost. When water is obtained, the patent shall be issued to the state, but the United States shall not be liable for any lien. This improved the bill greatly, but it still retained the serious defect of a time limit of ten years in which the reclamation must have been accomplished. This brought forth a second amendment passed as a rider to an appropriation bill, and approved March 3, 1901, which counted the ten years from the year in which the state's grant is approved and gave the power to the Secretary of the Interior to extend the time not to exceed five years.

In 1910, March 15, another amendment was added which authorized the Secretary of the Interior, upon the application of a beneficiary state or territory, "To withdraw temporarily from settlement or entry areas embracing lands for which the state or territory proposes to make application... pending the investigation and survey preliminary to the filing of maps and plats and applications for segregation. Provided that if the state or territory shall not present its application for segregation and maps and plats within one year after such temporary withdrawals the lands so withdrawn shall be restored to entry as though such withdrawal had not been made."

Many states availed themselves of this opportunity. Idaho and Wyoming, in 1908, took an additional million acres and Idaho has today a third million acres. Oregon did not fare so well due to poor state laws, but after adopting, in 1909, the Idaho-Wyoming laws, is at present meeting with success, and by 1914, 155,649.39 acres were applied for but none segregated nor patented. Washington entered into the contract but necessity for such aid was not felt, for this was the period in which the "then most extensive Sunnyside project" was under way, besides the many lesser ones. Then, too, the State Government was under a conservative regime and feared much state activity. Perhaps

the machinery which was made to put into operation the Carey Act was the principle reason for Washington's failure to make use of it.

The legislative act of 1895 shows a lack of business experience. This law would have worked a hardship on land speculators and these might be men of no little influence, and so for economic, political and personal reasons the Carey Act did not work magic in our fair State, even though the land and water was made common ownership, and adequate water was supplied for all lands under a project and the State supervision should have encouraged investors.

An interesting controversy arose between the people living along the Sunnyside Canal and those living on the reservation. We have already noted that irrigation had begun on the reservation almost immediately with the Indians accepting it as their home, with the building of the Irwin Canal and extending the others during the nineties. Opposition came from the Washington Irrigation Company whose lands had been already rapidly settled. In 1905, the Washington Irrigation Company, the successor to the Northern Pacific, Kittitas and Yakima Irrigating Company, builders of the Sunnyside Canal, brought an injunction suit, to restrain from taking the waters to use on the reservation; for on February 19, 1903, the then superintendent of the Yakima Reservation filed on one thousand cubic feet per second of water for the use and benefit of the reservation. While the suit was pending, Ethan A. Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior, undertook to compromise and in March, 1906, awarded one hundred and forty-seven second-feet to the Washington Irrigation Company. Much disgust at the unfairness was expressed. The Superintendent of the Indian Reservation. said, "The Sunnyside project in 1905 and 1906 had 40,000 acres under canals and being irrigated, with an ultimate irrigable area of 90,000 acres, and these lands were allowed six hundred fifty second-feet of water, while the Indians with irrigation systems with a capacity to serve 80,000 acres and an irrigable area of 120,000 acres, and with irrigated area of 47,000 acres, were allowed only one hundred fortyseven second-feet.”

In 1912, a commission was created by Congress to investigate the feasibility of procuring impounded waters for the Yakima Indian Reservation and things are being satisfactorily adjusted. (Report of Superintendent of Indian Reservation, House Document No. 1299). For the purpose of doing justice to each party a Senatorial Committee was created in 1912 for the purpose of investigating the justice of Mr. Hitchcock's awards. Everything has been satsfactorily adjusted, since the Government has taken over the Sunnyside Canal, and the great storage reservoirs have been built, and there is sufficient water for both.