“One of the chief reasons for the failure of the Indians on the reservations mentioned to utilize their irrigable lands has been the failure to provide appropriations necessary to enable them to buy teams and tools and other equipment, without which the utilization of their lands is impossible. The main thought apparently has been to build the ditches, and with rare exceptions no provision has been made to use tribal funds for any other purpose than that of reimbursing the Government for the cost of construction of the project. At the same time the Indian has lacked the credit which is available to the white settler living under similar conditions necessary to help himself. Through the policy of reimbursable appropriations established during the last few years Congress has begun to prepare a remedy for these conditions. But on a majority of the reservations mentioned above, Indians are still in a position where they have to sit idly by and witness the expenditure of their own funds in the construction and maintenance of irrigation ditches which, under present conditions, they cannot use and in which expenditures they have no voice—helpless, though they have more than ample resources in their undeveloped lands to secure money advances necessary to make productive use thereof. “Another reason for the lack of adequate utilization of Indian lands may be found in the failure to adjust the size of the allotment of irrigable land to the conditions of soil and climate and the industrial habits and needs of the Indians. While in the Southwest, on the Colorado River and Yuma Reservations and several others, allotments have been made in 10–acre tracts, and in some cases smaller, suitable to the methods of intensive agriculture practiced in that section of country, this policy has been lacking almost universally in the reservations of the Northwest, where in most cases allotment has been made under the general allotment act, which did not take into consideration the question of possible irrigation. The allotment of 80 acres to each man, woman, and child is found under the irrigation projects on the Yakima, Uintah, Crow, Wind River, Flathead, and Southern Ute (diminished) Reservations while on Blackfeet and Fort Peck the size of the allotment is 40 acres, and on Fort Hall 40 acres to each head of a family and 20 acres to each other member of the tribe. Take the Uintah and Wind River Reservations, for example, where beneficial use is required by State law in order to protect the water rights. The average family of five members would have 400 acres of irrigable land. The average white family in the same section of the country can not utilize satisfactorily over 80, or at the most 160, acres of the same land. How can an Indian family unassisted, and especially without money or credit to buy tools and equipment, be expected to reclaim 400 acres of land? [Illustration: RINCON RESERVATION, MISSION INDIANS, CALIFORNIA