artesian water would give to
a foot of Dakotan soil within a year. So it would take two hundred and
twenty-five years for this soil to acquire as much of these saline
ingredients as the rich soil of Holland already possesses.

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 cooeperate 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 en