I30 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION March 



acres will be opened this spring, and put under irrigation next spring, and 



8,000 acres more will be made ready opened as a fruit-growing district, by 



before 1910. The lands served by this a party of Spokane men. J. W. Mor- 



plant will be devoted exclusively to rison has been appointed manager, 



orcharding. It will be cut off into five The tract is thirty miles north of 



and ten-acre tracts for the cultivation Fernie, near Bayne's Lake, in a dis- 



of apples, peaches, pears, apricots, trict which won prizes at the fruit 



walnuts and almonds. expositions in England and Scotland. 



It is now purposed to replace the To water the land, the Kootenai 



overhanging flumes in the mountains River will be tapped at Elko, four and 



by tunnels and ditches in the rock, a half miles above the property. Most 



Two miles of tunneling and the filling of this ditch, it is reported, has already 



of twenty-three gulches, ranging from been dug, and all the laterals will be 



40 to 300 feet in width and from 30 to constructed, ready for watering the 



100 feet in depth, will be necessary. land, by spring. All of the irrigaing 



The bridge just completed by Mr. will be done by gravity. 

 Clark's company to carry the water Soil in the Kootenai Valley is a 

 pipes and afford connection for the rich black loam, which is not only pro- 

 people of East Wenatchee, Southside, ductive of fruit, but grows grains and 

 and Columbia Valley, is the first high- hay of all kinds in abundance. The 

 way bridge to span the Columbia Great Northern station of Baynes is 

 River in its 2,000 miles of meander- located on the tract, which is also 

 ing. It was opened to traffic a few within six miles of the Canadian Pa- 

 days ago. The length of the bridge is cific Railroad. The land has been 

 more than a third of a mile. The platted into five and ten acre tracts, 

 highest point, which is over the piers which will be disposed of to actual 

 at anchor arms, is 180 feet from low- settlers at a little more than cost and 

 water mark. interest on the capital invested. 



Irrigation Seven hundred acres of 



Around land in five and ten-acre Every Acre At one stroke of the 



Spokane ^^^^^^ midway between R4se°rved Lieutenant - Governor s 



Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, known as pen 150,000,000 acres of 



East Farms, will be brought under the ^o^est land m British Columbia have 



ditch by the Corbin interests of Spo- been placed in reserves. This in- 



kane early in April, when special eludes every acre of the provinces 



trains will be run from Spokane and timber lands, except what has been 



Coeur d'Alene the day the canal is leased. This is as much land as was 



formally opened. It is expected to put P"^ m the National Forests of this 



in the first crop this year. The main country between the years 1891 and 



canal taps the Spokane River at Post ^907- 



Falls, Idaho, just below the "bear- The action was taken to check 

 trap" dam recently constructed by the wasteful exploitation of timber re- 

 Washington Water Power Company. sources and to bring the care and cut- 

 Other important irrigation enter- ting of timber more effectually under 

 prises to be carried out in the vicinity Government control, 

 of Spokane next spring are projected The province has been leasing tim- 

 by the White Bluffs Irrigation Com- ber land instead of selling it. The 

 pany and the Hanford Irrigation and most of the leasing has been done in 

 Power Company. the past three or four years, and 



Americans hold the largest part of the 



New Irriga- Ten thousand acres of 10,000 leases now in force. The lease 



Kootenai ^^"^ ^" *^^ Kootenai is, in its effect, a long-term option at 



River Valley, in British low rate. It runs twenty-one years, 



Columbia, north of Spokane, will be and may be renewed at the end of the 



