I«^ 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



April 



The decrease in the former is due to 

 the exhaustion of the forests near wa- 

 ter courses ; that in the latter, to the 

 great increase in the use of manufac- 

 tured ice. 



One of the striking facts brought 

 out by the report is the rapid increase 

 in the use of iron and steel as materials 

 for the construction of vessels. 



Large Use- In l88o the amount of 

 fulness cf freight passing through 

 the canals and canalized 

 rivers of the United States was, in 

 round numbers, 21,000,000 tons; in 

 1889, 49,000,000 tons; and in 1906, 

 122,000,000 tons, an increase of over 

 480 per cent between 1880 and 1906. 

 This increase has resulted wholly 

 from the increased use of Government 

 canals, which are ship canals and can- 

 alized rivers ; the use of canals under 

 State and corporation control, largely 

 of the smaller type, has steadily de- 

 creased. 



In striking contrast to this great in- 

 crease in the canal freight movement 

 is the comparatively small increase in 

 the length of the canals and canalized 

 rivers. 



The busiest canal in the world is the 

 St. Mary's Falls canal connecting Lake 

 Superior with Lake Huron. In 1906 

 the net tonnage of vessels passing 

 through this canal was three times as 

 great as that through the Suez canal 

 and more than seven times as great as 

 that through the Kaiser Wilhelm, or 

 Kiel, canal. This is the more note- 

 worthy since the St. Mary's Falls canal, 

 on account of the severity of the cold, 

 is open to traffic for only about eight 

 months in the year, while the others 

 are open twelve. 



Mere Than Three hundred and six- 

 500 Miles ty-three thousand acres 



of land, hitherto untilled 

 or upon which the productiveness 

 was limited, was put under water 

 or included in irrigation projects 

 in the Inland Empire in 1907. This 

 does not include the acreage of the 



projects at North Yakima. Lewiston, 

 Sunnyside and others where the main 

 ditches were dug before the beginning 

 of last year; nor are the Twin Falls 

 projects in Idaho, the Boise enter- 

 prises, the Jefferson Valley plan or the 

 numerous plants in the Boundary 

 country included in the total. These 

 would make the acreage more than 

 700,000. 



Profits from Good wheat land in the 



Land^*^^ Northwest may be de- 



pended upon, it is said, 

 to produce an average of 25 bushels 

 a year, and the grower may realize 

 $20 an acre gross profit out of his 

 crop. Allowing only $150 an acre for 

 the value of the average irrigated 

 land crop, it produces nearly eight 

 times as much as the same area of 

 wheat land, and is therefore worth as 

 much to the city near which it lies. 

 Hence the projects that will bring the 

 equivalent of 64 square miles of wheat 

 land near Spokane into cultivation op- 

 ens a new empire that will easily sup- 

 port a population of 225,000 more 

 than now live in the northwest. In 

 revenue, allowing $150 an acre for its 

 annual productiveness, it will yield 

 $54,500,000 a year, or far more than 

 the total value of the Inland Empire 

 wheat crop in 1907, which is placed 

 at $37,500,000. 



Since irrigation farming is so profit- 

 able, it would seem that even in humid 

 areas it would pay to experiment with 

 irrigation, to see whether having con- 

 trol of the moisture supply would not 

 give an advantage to the farmer. 



Improvements During the last five 



done in the State of 

 Washington by the irrigation investi- 

 gations of the U. S. Office of Experi- 

 ment Stations, especially in the Yak- 

 ima valley, has thrown much light upon 

 conditions existing in the irrigated dis- 

 tricts and has pointed the way to bet- 

 terment along many lines. In the im- 

 provement of canal construction, in the 

 administration of canal systems, in the 



