IPOWES 



WATC 



SOILS 



AND 



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. I?R1^ 



Vol. XV 



JULY, 1 909 



No. 7 



IRRIGATION IN THE INLAND EMPIRE 



IRRIGATION by Government proj- 

 ects covering more than 2.000,000 



acres of lands in the West, and by 

 private projects covering some ii,- 

 000,000 ; possibilities under intensive 

 cultivation and the advantages of com- 

 munity life in localities where orchards, 

 fields, and gardens are watered by artifi- 

 cial means, and problems of forestry, 

 deep waterways, reclamation of swamp 

 lands, good roads, conservation of re- 

 sources and home-building, all will be 

 brought prominently to the fore during 

 the seventeenth sessions of the National 

 Irrigation Congress. This meeting will 

 be held in Spokane, August 9 to 14, when 

 between 4,000 and 5,000 accredited del- 

 egates and representative business men 

 of the United States and Canada, Eu- 

 rope, the Latin republics, China, and 

 Japan will meet under the presidency 

 of George Eames Barstow of Texas. 



The board of control, through its ex- 

 ecutive committee, headed by R. lu- 

 singer, is arranging a comprehensive 

 program, including addresses by states- 

 men, scientists, bankers, and experts in 

 their various lines of endeavor, and dis- 

 cussions by delegates^. In addition. 



there will be demonstrations by officials 

 of the United States Reclamation Serv- 

 ice of the scientific application of moist- 

 ure. These will take place in the state 

 armory, where the congress meets. 



There will also be parades of prog- 

 ress, showing the development of the 

 Northwest, and a march in review by 

 the industrial and irrigation army of 

 10,000 men, representing the various 

 districts in which intensified farming is 

 practised. The thoroughfares and 

 buildings in the city will be decorated 

 and illuminated by myriads of electric 

 lights, and there will be massed exhibits 

 of the resources of the country, the un- 

 furling of the colors of the nations, 

 patriotic airs by massed bands, the sing- 

 ing of the irrigation ode by a large 

 chorus of trained singers and rendi- 

 tions of national and state hymns by 

 school children. 



Though there are now approximately 

 200 private irrigation projects in what 

 is called the Inland Empire, embracing 

 150,000 square miles of territory in 

 eastern Washington, northern Idaho. 

 Avestern Montana, northeastern Oregon, 

 and' southeastern British Columbia, and 



385 



