We might go further into this subject and show that every ingredient of these artesian well salts is a necessary food for many plant tissues; but even if the accumulation of salty substances were thought dangerous, it is to be remembered that during five of the ten years since the settlement of the Jim Valley, the rainfall has been ample, and if this average should continue, the land could be allowed to rest from irrigation for one half of the time so that the floods of rain-water would wash away the surplus saline matter.
Enough has now been said to show that in South Dakota, at least, no harm is likely to accrue to the soil under five hundred years, if South Dakota chemists are to be trusted. By that time chemistry will have advanced from an analytic to a creative science, and if what was once ignorantly termed "The Great American Desert" should suddenly lapse into a saline state, a speedy cure for that condition may be counted on with confidence.
Dismissing, then, this danger as something too dim in the distance to be regarded even as ultimately certain, we are confronted with a really grave question--a question fraught with serious immediate peril, if answered practically in the way it seems likely to be, unless patriotic Dakotans coöperate to prevent it. How shall the burden of the cost be borne? The farmers individually are mostly too poor, and in the Northwest, which the oppressions of the railroads and the teachings of Donelly have honeycombed with tendencies to State socialism, the first answer is, "By the State, of course." But the need of action in this matter is pressing, and the State of South Dakota certainly is too poor at present, for her debt-limit, under her constitution, is already reached.
For the counties to attempt it would be equally difficult, for many persons not directly benefited would be forced to share the expense, and under the pressure of continued hard times an irrigation rebellion might result and most certainly dissatisfaction as to the location of the wells would ensue. There is another plan against which none of these objections can be raised. A bill has been introduced in the legislature, providing that when thirty voters shall so petition, the State engineer of irrigation shall select proper sites for nine six-inch or sixteen four and one half inch wells. An election shall then be held to vote bonds of the township. If they carry, the supervisors shall have these wells sunk, and shall rent the water to such farmers as wish it, at a sum in no case exceeding a _pro-rata_ share of seven per cent. of the value of the bonds, the title to the water to go with the title to the land so long as the rent is paid.