PULSE OF THE IRRIGATION INDUSTRY. 



IRRIGATION IN CENTRAL WYOMING. 



BY ARTHUR W. PHILLIPS. 



IRRIGATION enterprise is awakening at a rapid 

 1 rate in Central Wyoming this year; several large 

 and very promising projects for utilizing the abund- 

 ant waters of the North Platte r iver have been 

 started and are well under headway at the present 

 time. The triumphant success of the Harvey water- 



a fine large body of land on the old Fetterman res- 

 ervation. 



The " Riverside Canal Company " has been lately 

 formed for the purpose of irrigating the rich bottom 

 lands along the river between Douglas and Orin 

 Junction. Their scheme involves the constructing of 

 a large water power plant, and pumping the water 

 into their canals. The place where they contemplate 



NORTH PLATTE RIVER AT LOWEST WATER, SEPTEMBER. 



wheel, which was described and illustrated in THE 

 AGE of June, this year, has opened people's eyes to 

 the vast possibilities of the splendid valley through 

 which the noble Platte, deriving its supply from 

 countless mountain springs and streams, and melted 

 snow from lofty mountain ranges, winds its way for a 

 distance of over 200 miles in the State of Wyoming, 

 carrying a volume of water amounting to 15,000 cubic 

 feet per second of time. 



The " Fetterman Ditch Company," recently organ- 

 ized, are working a number of teams on their ditch 

 above Dougjas, and will construct a ditch to irrigate 



building the waterwheels is admirably adapted to 

 such an undertaking, being a narrow channel between 

 two rocky banks, where the fall in the river is very 

 great. The development of an immense power is 

 comparatively easy and cheap at this point, and when 

 power is obtained it is an easy matter to raise all the 

 water required to a height of twenty-five or thirty feet. 



THE PLATTE VALLEY. 



The irrigation of the Platte valley by this means 

 can be accomplished at a small outlay per acre, and 

 the splendid water supply in the Platte insures 

 abundance of water at all times and for all purposes. 



