Mr. TALLMAN. There would be an additional charge. Of course, the Government contemplates providing power for that for pretty near nothing over here [indicating], if they get this development. Here will be power they own and have paid for.

Mr. WELLING. What I want to get at is this: The east mesa lands at $100 an acre, with a gravity water right, would be very much more advantageous to the purchaser than the Yuma-Mesa lands which have been purchased at $225 an acre, with a contemplated added charge for water which must be pumped 80 feet high.

Mr. LITTLE. You mean they would be worth more because the water would not cost so much?

Mr. WELLING. The water would not cost so much and the lands would not cost so much at $100 an acre.

Mr. LITTLE. How much of this Yuma land is there under cultivation, Mr. Tallman?

Mr. TALLMAN. Well, the Yuma project is already under irrigation down here [indicating]. I don't know how much. I am not familiar with those figures.

Mr. ROSE. Forty thousand acres.

Mr. TALLMAN. And how many acres was it they offered for sale there?

Mr. ROSE. They offered 6,000 acres out of 40,000. There are about 50,000 down in the bottom under cultivation by gravity at the present time.

Mr. LITTLE. What has that cost to get it to the place they are now? Mr. ROSE. The pump lift, it would be just a matter of purchasing and installing.

Mr. LITTLE. I don't mean in detail, but what is the general cost of the Yuma project so far?

Mr. FINNEY. $75 an acre.

Mr. LITTLE. What is the total amount?

Mr. ROSE. $9,000,000.

Mr. FINNEY. I think about $9,000,000, including the big dam at Laguna. That may be recouped, in part, by allowing these fellows to hook on and help pay for it.

Mr. WELLING. Now, Mr. Tallman, I can understand how there may be a small group of people that would purchase 6,000 acres of land if that is what is contained in the Yuma-Mesa project, but is there any sufficient market for the disposing of 200,000 acres of land, as is contemplated on the east-mesa project?

Mr. FINNEY. May I answer that in part? This Yuma-Mesa project is much larger than that. It covers thirty to forty thousand acres. Mr. WELLING. But only 6,000 acres thus far have been disposed of? Mr. FINNEY. As a matter of expediency and in accordance with the funds we had on hand, we decided to open it in units, so it is divided into several units. The first one opened up was six or seven thousand acres, the sale lasted two or three days, and the land was snapped up immediately. I have no doubt more could have been sold if we had been in shape to open a larger unit.

Mr. WELLING. How are you going to furnish the water for these fellows that you have sold land to now?

Mr. FINNEY. That water will come from the Yuma Canal.

Mr. WELLING. You haven't got that pumping plant arranged for, have you?

Mr. FINNEY. We are going to build a pumping plant with the money derived from the sale of the land.

Mr. WELLING. I see; but Mr. Tallman referred to the project as developing power as a drop in the All-American Canal?

Mr. FINNEY. Well, we will buy power for the time being from some one of the power companies if necessary.

Mr. LITTLE. Where is the most valuable land in the United States, the most valuable farm land, and what is it worth? Where is land held highest?

Mr. FINNEY. I don't know that I am an expert on that, but I would say nonirrigated land probably in the State of Iowa. Mr. LITTLE. How much is it worth an acre?

Mr. FINNEY. I have heard of sales there at $275 and $300 an acre. Mr. LITTLE. In Monmouth County, N. J., there are thousands of acres of land selling at $500 an acre, potato land.

The CHAIRMAN. Land has sold in Nebraska this year for $600 an

acre.

Mr. LITTLE. That was irrigated land?

The CHAIRMAN. No; not irrigated at all.

Mr. SINNOTT. We have got $5,000-acre-land in my district.

Mr. LITTLE. What do they do with it?

Mr. SINNOTT. That is in apple orchards.

Mr. KIBBEY. May I ask Mr. Tallman a question or two, Judge? The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. KIBBEY. Do you know how much it will cost to level the Yuma-Mesa lands, Mr. Tallman?

Mr. TALLMAN. No.

Mr. KIBBEY. Do you know of the character of the lands with reference to leveling?

Mr. TALLMAN. Only that I understand it will be pretty expensive. Mr. KIBBEY. On the Yuma-Mesa?

Mr. TALLMAN. Yes.

Mr. KIBBEY. Do you know them as compared with the east side mesa?

Mr. TALLMAN. No.

Mr. KIBBEY. What is the amount bid by the Yuma-Mesa as compared with the cost? What I am getting at is this: There was a certain amount for water, a certain amount for improvement of that particular unit, was there not?

Mr. TALLMAN. I understand so.

Mr. KIBBEY. How is that cost divided?

Mr. TALLMAN. $25 was the price put on the land, minimum, and $200 was the construction charge.

Mr. KIBBEY. That went into improvement of the land itself, did it not? That went back into improvements for this particular unit? Mr. TALLMAN. It was to build the project, to put in the pumping system and the canals.

Mr. WELLING. You didn't contemplate leveling the land for the purchaser?

Mr. TALLMAN. I don't think so.

Mr. KIBBEY. Did you contemplate building roadways on the land? Mr. TALLMAN. I don't know whether they do or not.

Mr. KIBBEY. Those lands were sold practically in 10-acre tracts, were they not?

Mr. TALLMAN. I understood that 40 acres was the limit?

Mr. FINNEY. I think they were plotted down as small as 10-acre lots; but the maximum lot which could be bought was 40 acres. Now, I can't say, though, just how agreement was, but I don't think any of that money derived at that sale is to be expended for leveling land or building roads. It is to be spent for the pumping plant and irrigating canals.

Mr. KIBBEY. I have been informed, whether accurately or not I don't know that is what I am trying to find out that there is a large portion of that money that is to build roads and concrete roads.

Mr. TALLMAN. I am not familiar with the plans of the Reclamation Service as to the details of how they are going to spend the money at all.

Mr. KIBBEY. I get my information from a member of the Laguna Water Co.

We

The CHAIRMAN. We can get this all from Director Davis. are going to have him here. Now, it seems we are through with the commissioner.

Mr. EVANS. I would like to ask Mr. Tallman a question, Mr. Chair

man.

What arrangements, under the Rose plan, have been made for providing for the security of the old Imperial irrigation district, for their water? What different arrangements would they have with this all-American canal from the old, providing their security for water?

Mr. TALLMAN. There was no arrangement in the Rose contract for the security of the old irrigation district.

Mr. EVANS. Well, was the old irrigation company to be supplied in the usual old way, or by the new way?

Mr. TALLMAN. So far as anything in the Rose contract was concerned, yes.

Mr. EVANS. They were to be continued under the old plan?

Mr. TALLMAN. Yes. Of course, we anticipated-we knew the necessities of the district, and we anticipated and hoped that they would eventually get together in some sort of common development there.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Tallman, what is the position of the department now on this Rose contract, if you care to tell us, and what is your judgment, and what is your advise to this committee, and what information, in other words, do we obtain here that will be beneficial to us toward determining this interminable consideration of these half dozen different bills and conflicting interests and claims? Is it the opinion of the department that we ought to slough along here and do nothing, and, if not, what ought we to do. If the department has any concrete advice to give on this matter, or any suggestions that would be helpful, I would like to know what they are.

I would like to know what the Government thinks about the Smith bill and the Kettner bill and the Rose contract, and what we ought to do or what we can do as a matter of practice or policy or anything else, that will be beneficial to us in helping determine this matter. The committee is in a rather hazy, chaotic frame of mind as to what is best to do, if I interpret their position correctly.

Mr. TALLMAN. Well, as to that, Mr. Taylor, in the first place, the Secretary has reported on some of these bills, and whatever he has stated constitutes the departmental view and policy in so far as he has stated it. I don't know that they have reported on the Smith bill. The CHAIRMAN. No; they have not.

Mr. TAYLOR. But Mr. Rose tells me, do you not, that the Smith bill is satisfactory? Didn't you tell me that?

Mr. Rose. It is to me; yes sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. Well, didn't you tell me it was also satisfactory to Mr. Tallman and Mr. Finney?

Mr. ROSE. Well, I said that they had expressed themselves favorably to me.

Mr. TAYLOR. I asked you if you had a report on it from the Secretary of the Interior, and you said no, but that these two gentlemen were favorable to it.

Mr. ROSE. That is right. I said I had talked to them, and they had expressed themselves favorably to me.

Mr. TAYLOR. Now I would like to have an expression as to the status of this matter. Shall we abandon the first Ketner bill; shall we disregard the Hayden bill; shall we abandon the second Kettner bill-H. R. 11553-and take up the Smith bill, or prepare some other substitute bill, or what is the up to date, concrete judgment of the Interior Department and the Reclamation Service as to what, if anything, this committee ought to do?

Mr. FINNEY. I would like to make a statement as to the Secretary's position myself.

Mr. TAYLOR. I would like to have you do it.

Mr. SINNOTT. Before you do that, will you let me ask Mr. Tallman a question? When I went out you were talking about the power there. How many second-feet will there be in that canal, and what will be the drop?

Mr. TALLMAN. I haven't that in mind.

Mr. ROSE. At Pilot Knob the contemplated canal will carry about six or seven thousand second-feet, with a drop of 30 feet. Then the idea was to use that during the construction of the system.

Mr. SINNOTT. That is all I want to know.

Mr. ROSE. Then, here are two drops here in the all-American Canal [indicating], when it is once built, one of 47 feet and one of 30 feet. That would be carrying about the same quantity of water before it was completed, but they figured on putting in units, and then whatever water went over to the Mexican side after the allAmerican Canal was completed would be also used over at their original power plant with 30-feet drop.

Mr. TAYLOR. Now I would like to get some information in the way of advice from the officials to this committee on this whole business in some specific, definite, and concrete form. I know the committee would welcome any official helpful information.

The CHAIRMAN. We were next to hear from Judge Finney, I believe.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Finney said he would like to make a statement, and I think we should not interrupt him, but let him alone and let him do it.

STATEMENT OF MR. E. C. FINNEY, INTERIOR DEPARTMENT.

Mr. FINNEY. I haven't a very long statement to make, but I just want to say to the committee that the Interior Department has approved these two tentative contracts-the Rose contract and the Imperial Valley contract—and we have made reports on several bills, all in an effort to try to help untangle the mess in the Imperial Valley and Colorado River situation.

The difficulty with the Imperial Valley, of course, is the diversion of water from the present intake, where they are having trouble all the time; where part of the time they can't get water into the canal; where Yuma is kicking because they have got a diversion dam in the river, which endangers the levies on the Yuma side of the river. Every year they have to put up heavy bonds to protect the Yuma project-you probably know all about that.

So that Imperial Valley is really in a bad situation. Now, that is one interest that the department has in settling this matter in some way, because they are after us all the time to help work out some sort of a solution of their difficulties. That is really, possibly, more important, if anything, than is getting these two or three hundred thousand acres of land under irrigation. So that each step that has been detailed here, which the department has taken with respect to thesecontracts and reports on these bills, has been an effort to find something that would solve the difficulty and something that the people might work out themselves, or that Congress might see fit to adopt. So when the first Kettner bill, 6044, came down to the department for a report, which bill provided for the bond issue by the districts which are existing or which might be formed, the bonds to be deposited in the Treasury and made the basis of a bond issue, and the work to be done that way, the Secretary made a favorable report upon that bill because he thought possibly it offered a solution of the difficulty.

Mr. LITTLE. Is that the bill Mr. Rose said was satisfactory to him? Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. LITTLE. Is that satisfactory to these other Imperial Valley representatives?

Mr. BARBOUR. Is that the first Kettner bill?

Mr. KIBBEY. The first Kettner bill is not satisfactory to the present representatives, and I believe not to the people of the Imperial Valley.

Mr. FINNEY. I believe also the Secretary of the Treasury interposed some objection.

Mr. TAYLOR. I believe we have practically decided we could not raise that bond issue at this time and have to take some other course, if we do anything.

Mr. FINNEY. So that as a result a second bill, 11553, came to the department for report.

Now, that has a bond scheme somewhat different. The districts issue the bonds and the Secretary of the Interior sells them at par, if he can, and if he can not sell them at par within five years, then he can sell them for less than par.

Mr. WELLING. This is the bill the committee made up from the Hayden and Kettner combination?