RECLAMATION OF ARID LANDS BEADLE. 481 



A canal 25 miles in length has been excavated to supplement the flow 

 of Milk Elver from that of St. Mary River, thus diverting water 

 through the divide separating the Hudson Bay drainage from that 

 of the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico. Work is now under way on 

 a storage dam at Sherburne Lakes and additional storage may be 

 provided by a dam at the outlet of Lower St. Mary Lake. Three to 

 four hundred miles below in Milk River Valley, distributing systems 

 are planned, heading at three diversion dams near the towns of 

 Chinook, Dodson, and Vandalia, with supplemental storage in a 

 reservoir fed by one of the main canals. The Dodson and Vandalia 

 dams have been built and distributaries for 40,000 acres. Grain and 

 hay are the staple crops. The rainfall is sufficient to permit dry- 

 farming, but the yield is doubled or trebled with irrigation. Ulti- 

 mately 200,000 acres or more may be watered. 



SUN RIVER PROJECT, MONTANA. 



Near Fort Shaw the Reclamation Service has built and operated 

 for several years a unit covering 16,000 acres, and work is now under 

 way on larger features of a project that may eventually comprise 

 175,000 acres. A diversion dam (pi. 9, fig. 2) has been recently 

 built in the Sun River near Elizabeth and a distribution system for 

 lands north of the river is under construction. A storage reservoir 

 will be built on the north fork of the Sun. 



The irrigable lands are within 50 miles of Great Falls, which 

 supplies a market for the farm products. Grain, hay, and vege- 

 tables are the principal crops. 



LOWER YELLOWSTONE PROJECT, MONTANA AND NORTH DAKOTA. 



About 18 miles below Glendive, Montana, the Yellowstone Dam 

 diverts water into a canal that covers a strip of land west of the 

 river in Montana and North Dakota. About 35,000 acres can now 

 be supplied. The cold climate and short growing season limit the 

 crops mainly to hay and grain, which give enhanced yields under 

 irrigation, but the rainfall is sufficient to encourage dry farming 

 and renders it difficult to secure uniform support for irrigation 

 among the settlers. No construction work has been done on this 

 project in recent years. 



NORTH PLATTE PROJECT, NEBRASKA AND WYOMING. 



This is another interstate project, utilizing the flow of the North 

 Platte River to irrigate lands in Wyoming and Nebraska. Storage 

 is provided near the headwaters by the Pathfinder Dam, a masonry 

 18618°— SM 1915 31 



