the State-guaranteed water rights had been fixed at the extremely low cost of ten dollars an acre.

The selling scheme was well planned, and the promoters soon loaded off water rights for 20,000 acres. The ready sale of the lands may have been partially due to the liberality of the promoters, they assured the settlerscontrary to the Carey Act law-that they could gain title without even coming

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Everything was booming with

the promoters. But unscheduled things now began to happen to to the settlers. Their land patents stopped coming from the Government, even though the State Land Board had formally pronounced the land. "reclaimed." Still more serious, many of the settlers were unable to get water for irrigation and it was rumored that there wasn't enough water to go around. The settlers became excited, then frenzied. They held an indignation meeting. The chief counsel of the promoting company was present at the meeting, and he answered in an ingenious manner the protests of the settlers.

to the State. But some of the settlers came anyway, freighting their goods more than a hundred miles out from the nearest railroad. Soon, also, the promoters platted a town. The promotion of town sites is usually associated with the construction of Carey Act projects. The town was named Laidlaw, after the chief promoter of the project that was so wonderfully to transform the desert.

"We've delivered all the water there is," he replied, in a sympathetic tone, "and we can't help it if the Almighty runs short. The Company can't produce

water," he added, "and if the Tumalow does not contain enough water, then each must take his share and be satisfied."

The State Land Board was aroused to make a belated inquiry into the Columbia Southern Carey Act project. It found that the promoters had contracted to reclaim 27,000 acres of land-the amount of water not having been fixed. The promoters had then sold Stateguaranteed water rights for 20,000 acres, at ten dollars an acre, to 275 prospective settlers. The total amount of water in

Tumalow Creek, on which the project depended, was sufficient to irrigate only 8,000 acres and approximately one-half of this water was already appropriated by other lands.

The Courts later decided that the Carey Act company was within legal bounds, for it had fulfilled its agreement to supply water to the settlers. The project is today about where it was eight years ago. The Company has been reorganized and has attempted to finance a revised plan which will provide a storage reservoir. The

settlers are patiently waiting for waterall but the few who happened to arrive first and are now appropriating all the water there is. If the new plan can be financed the settlers must now pay forty dollars an acre for their water right, instead of the originally agreed-upon ten dollars an acre. If not financed, then the only hope for the settlers is an appeal to the Oregon Legislature, which in the past has seemed little disposed to listen to hard-luck stories.

In Idaho, at the last State election, the

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each Western State that would assume the responsibility of reclaiming such a body of land. This reclamation included the subdivision of the grant of land into small tracts that would be sold to actual homeseekers.

Ten of the Western States, as follows, have accepted the offer: Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Oregon, New Mexico, South Dakota, Nevada and Washington. The steps for gaining State title to these Government lands are simple.

Some promoter discovers a

Carey Act mix-up was enough of a political issue to turn the State inside out, and to overcome a heavy normal Republican majority and to elect a Democratic governer. In Oregon, the Carey Act mix-up is one of the most tangled legal and economic riddles that the officials at the State capitol are trying to puzzle out. And there are other States that also have their Carey Act troubles.

But the Carey Act has not always seen dark days. In fact, many a booster shouted hilariously when Congress passed the Carey Act bill, in 1894. This bill in effect told the Western States that they could each experiment with Carey Act irrigation. The terms of the National Carey Act are simple-and the law has a most ambitious and worthy purpose. In plain terms, Congress granted a full million acres of arid government land to

possible reclamation project, and he submits a plan for its reclamation to the State Land Board. If the State accepts the project, the plans are in turn submitted by the State officials to the Federal Government. If still favorable, a contract is executed between the State and the United States. By this time the tract has been withdrawn from other entry, and the private company proceeds to reclaim and colonize the land. In colonizing, the promoter is allowed to collect the acreage cost for reclamation which has been made a part of his contract with the State Land Board, this acreage cost incidentally including a profit for the promoter.

Many of the States thought the Carey Act was all receiving and no giving. They figuratively opened their pockets for the irrigation benefits to be poured

United States would pass upon the feasibility of all projects, as well as upon the sufficiency of the water available, and whether or not the land had been reclaimed according to the contract."

But one must turn to Idaho, the giant among all the Carey Act States of

in. They didn't seem to realize there were obligations due the thousands of homeseekers that were enticed to the West as a result of this irri

gation law. For example, the Oregon Legislature, in 1901, passed a law accepting the terms of the Carey Act. But the cautious legislators provided that the State should be under no expense whatever, in carrying out the provisions of the law.

This is the reason why Oregon is today reaping a Carey Act whirlwind. The early Carey Act promoters in Oregon had matters almost their own way, or thought they had. They carried their paper plans to the State Land Board, consisting of the Governor, the Secretary of State, and the State Treasurer, each of whom had a myriad of official and political problems of his own. Nor were there any irrigation specialists in the State House who could be called into conference with the State Land Board. Hence, the State Land Board fell into the easy habit of writing their formal "O. K." on practically all of the representations of the promoters. The State Land Board innocently thought they were doing their whole duty. For in their 1907 report they excuse past mistakes by saying they were "under the impression that the

the West, to study Carey Act irrigation at its heights-also its depths. Carey Act irrigation put Idaho on the map. Before the passage of the Act, Idaho was little but a land of sheep barons, cattle kings, and mining camps. One could travel for days across its plains without seeing even a wire fence. Then came the Carey Act boom, when southern Idaho was perhaps the best advertised, the most exploited section of the entire West. Then the crash of the Carey Act boom, and the dark days following "Blue May." And lastly the Carey Act political reaction, the repenting and the reconstructing present days.

Carey Act promotion in Idaho has always been linked with the most ardent of Western boosting. The boosters verily believed and knew that irrigated Idaho was the modern Garden of Eden. And the boosters are not talking or advertising anything less even today. One of the salaried community publicity_men with whom I talked in southern Idaho last summer admitted that there were "a few unfortunate examples of mistakes among Carey Act projects and some grumbling."

"But," the booster added and correct

ed, "there have been no more mistakes, and there is no more grumbling, than is usually expected in any business costing so much money."

A little later, one of the big Idaho Carey Act promoters, summarized reasons why immigration into Idaho was only a fraction of what it had been during previous years. These reasons included such far-away ones as "the immigration into Canada; the difficulty of securing loans on Eastern farms; the fact that the greater part of the Carey Act lands had already been sold, hence the projects were being little advertised."

"But," the Carey Act promoter added, with a burst of enthusiasm, "we have some grand Carey Act projects. Have you visited Twin Falls ?"

The promoter had said the expected thing, for the great Twin Falls project is the Mecca of all Idaho irrigation boosters. So persistent and well-planned has been

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1900 when the Twin Falls project, the fourth Idaho Carey Act project, was first proposed. "Twin Falls" has been almost a trade mark for southern Idaho, and it is said that more than a million dollars have been expended toward indelibly stamping the name on the world's consciousness.

The visitor who has money to invest, or is a prospective settler, is shown irrigation results-a great flat body of land, much of it well-improved and cultivated, which only a few years ago was a windswept, dusty, almost worthless, plain. I talked with one newcomer, living a mile or so out from the city limits of Twin Falls, who said his five acres of land had cost him "a little better than $5,000." And from $200 to $400 an acre has not been an exceptional selling price for the irrigated land. But the word is whispered that the project has not been a money maker. The project is perhaps not exceptional in this regard. Indeed, one promoter over in central Oregon went so far as to say to me last summer, "There isn't a single Carey Act project

in the West that has made money for the promoters, and the only thing that has saved any of them is their town promotion schemes."

The promoters of the Twin Falls project, figured

CENTRAL OREGON.