Show t CONGRESSMEN FROM the interior li + i t farwest are seemingly determined on the laudable purpose of getting ti Y R t hold of some of the government t ° money with which to reclaim the i R tt i > I s arid wastes of this region Belford t I of Colorado has a bill providing for I r i the lease of the arid lands for a f term of years the rental to bet Ii F be-t nominal The ideaj is that private f ° parties will improve the land so i r I that government can sell it but unless t t un-less there is improvement the title l f will continue in the government + J Cassidy of Nevada has introduced i a bill providing that two artesian wells shall be sunk on public land in the sagebrush state at a cost oft of-t 100000 He basis his claim for the i money upon the assertion of the d surveyor general of the state that a i millions of acres of now worthless worth-less land can be made + c = fruitful by such wells Cassidy suggests i l S 1 sug-gests that government offer a reward of one or two sections of 1 land for the discovery of artesian 4 water Delegate Oury has a bill t t appropriating 50000 for the boring i of five artesian wells in Arizona his 1 t f idea also being that the sand plains s l of tat dry territory can be made i fruitful From Idaho there comes something which has a bad look i about it The Idaho Land and Irrigation 1 I Ir-rigation Company is a corporation k under the laws of the territory its object being the making of canals i and ditches and the selling or otherwise utilizing of water conveyed i I 1 veyed in them for the reclamation of arid lands Senator Vest has introduced in-troduced a bill briefly referrel to in our telegramt the other day I granting to this company the right J i i x = z s to build and forever maintain canals in which to convey the waters of Snake and Boise Rivers to arid lands south of them The right of way is granted through all lands public and priva e and every alternate alter-nate section of land th it can be irrigated irri-gated within prescribed boundaries is to be given to the company which is also granted the power to build dams across the rivers at any point and a perpetual right in the water A similar bill has been introduced by Mr Vest in behalf of the Utah and Idaho Irrigation Company giving giv-ing the exclusive right to use the waters of Bear River in Idaho and granting a subsidy of six sections of land per mile for each canal and branch constructed It may be there is no steal contemplated in these bills but they have a bad look about them It is true much of the land in southern Idaho is now practically worthless and can only be made productive by irrigation at the same time there is land that private enterprise will soon redeem without the assistance of a subsidy from Congress Who compose the two irrigation companies mentioned anyhow |