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Show I . ! U. S. FARM NO BED OF ROSES Reclamation Service Head Point Out Many Drawbacks Irrigated Tracts Pay After Hard Work. Life on a government irrigation farm is not the bed of roses which I many picture it to be. Director New- ' ell of the reclamation service points out in a paper prepared for the Smith- sonlan Institution. "This wakening to the fact that !r- rigation has its thorny side," he declares, de-clares, "sometimes comes as a startling start-ling shock, sufficient to discount all but the most enthusiastic or pert slstent, and the more faint-hearted, seek farther for the promised land. "Those who remain soon learn that success must be secured by subduing the soil, getting it into a good condition condi-tion of tilth, applying water day and night and perhaps all night, wading around In the mud or enduring the heat of the long days of brilliant sunshine sun-shine and the accompanying dust of the arid regions, the troubles with neighbors over the division of water and the possible seepage, followed by crop losses or ruin from alkali. As a consequence a considerable part of the first settlers on every irrigation system sell out or relinquish their homesteads and seek other fields." The most difficult problems still remain re-main for the reclamation service, he says. It has successfully solved the engineering and business problems, but those of "dealing with the set-, tiers, giving them sound advice andW'' at the same time collecting from" them the cost of the works, the dealing deal-ing with the human as opposed to the physical elements, are far more difficult than those of engineering construction or related business management." |