PULSE OF THE IRRIGATION INDUSTRY. 



161 



is that the city has no right to take water from the 

 river outside the city limits, and sell or dispose of it. 

 The city has been selling this water for forty years 

 and if this decision stands it will mean a net loss of 

 $25,000 a year. It is expected that the city will file a 

 petition for a rehearing. 



The News says that the Hemet Company has just 

 received the first order of 3,000 barrels of cement to 

 be used in the extension of the Hemet dam to its pro- 

 jected height of 150 feet. The cement has just been 

 unloaded at San Pedro, and will arrive at Hemet 

 shortly. Work will commence at the dam as soon as 

 good weather is assured. 



COLORADO. 



The High Land Canal & Reservoir Company are 

 crowding the surveying of their new ditch. With 

 the help of J. H. Hougaard they have run the pre- 

 liminary line, and find nearly 2,000 acres more land 

 under the ditch than they expected, which is still 

 open for location. 



Engineer E. E. Baker estimates that there is not far 

 from 20,000 yards of dirt to be moved on the Fort 

 Morgan canal extension. This, we suppose, is in ad- 

 dition to the fill approaches to the flume. Fort Mor- 

 gan Times. 



Dr. B. R. Mpsher, of Kinsley, has his irrigating 

 pump in operation, and it is pronounced a success by 

 those who have viewed and investigated the plant. 



Grant county boasts of an irrigating ditch four 

 miles long ; Hamilton county has over twenty miles in 

 operation and about the same distance under process 

 of construction. 



The dry weather is causing the farmers not under 

 irrigation to feel discouraged, fearing another crop 

 failure. 



I. L. Diesem has been appointed fish warden for 

 Finney county. Mr. Diesem lately shipped two con- 

 signments of fish from his reservoirs to parties in 

 Edwards county. 



Every indication so far points to another failure 

 for Western Kansas, although it may be too early 

 yet to form definite conclusions, writes Presley I. 

 Lancaster. My experience with sowing grain in the 

 dust has been a dear one, and I have determined to 

 take no more chances in that line, and therefore, look 

 askance upon the dust fields this year. We have the 

 cold winter in our favor, for such winters are almost 

 invariably followed by large harvests, and then we 

 can hardly expect three complete failures in succes- 

 sion. But poor, indeed, is the present outlook. 



A failure this year would really be for the perma- 

 nent bettering of Western Kansas. It would con- 

 vince the last settler that we were once and for all 

 "short" on rain, and would put the country on an im- 

 mediate irrigation and stock-raising basis. The 

 "divide" settlers have been here nine years. They 

 have spent their own nest eggs, the mortgage they 

 made at "proving" up time, and the chattel loans on 

 their stock and implements. Now, it is plain to me 

 that they will never get up again, never pay interest 

 on their debts even, by farming in the old way. Give 

 them a crop this year, let them pay out of this their 

 share for seed, the expense for grain and hay, their 

 grocery bill, and I don't believe one out of ten will 

 have seed enough for next season. That is apt to be 



a failure, and again the same thing of aid, aid, aid' 

 Three in nine years: '90, '92 and '93. 



The sooner we get at irrigating on every 160 acres 

 the sooner will we be above dependence or aid, the 

 sooner will the mortgages be paid, and the sooner 

 will we raise the name of this coyote country from 

 that of public pauperism into one as fair and credit- 

 able as that of Southern California. 



Irrigation, hogs and alfalfa; these are our rain- 

 makers and gold makers. 



MONTANA. 



A corporation has been organized at Glasgow by 

 the representative business men with a capital stock 

 of 8200,000 under the name of the Montana Irrigation 

 and Land Company, for the purpose of irrigating and 

 reclaiming the arid lands of Valley county, with the 

 construction of the necessary irrigation canals and a 

 system of storage reservoirs, with the following execu- 

 tive officers: J. L. Truscott, president; Chas. E. Hall, 

 vice-president; M. D. Hoyt, secretary ; Frank Lem- 

 mer, treasurer and A. W. Mahon, chief engineer. 



NEW MEXICO. 



The final location is being made of the two-hundred- 

 mile extension of the Pecos Valley Railway from 

 Roswell northeasterly to a connection with the Santa 

 Fe system and the Denver & Ft. Worth Railway at 

 Washburn or Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle. 



The farmers of the Pecos Valley are becoming 

 much interested in the cultivation of sugar beet. 

 Analyses of beets raised in various parts of the val- 

 ley last season show that they run remarkably high 

 in saccharine matter and purity, while the yields per 

 acre border on the phenomenal. A beet sugar factory 

 in the Pecos Valley is doubtless a question of a short 

 time only. 



The splendid fertility of the soil, added to the miles 

 upon miles of irrigating canal should prove suffi- 

 ciently seductive to induce the farmer to leave his 

 mortgage-burdened farm in the East for a few acres 

 in the Pecos valley. 



SOUTH DAKOTA. 



There are about twenty-five or thirty artesian wells 

 in Bon Homme county, South Dakota. Many of 

 them are of small size 1% to 3 inches used prin- 

 cipally for stock, although some water is used for irri- 

 gation. There are two fine fish ponds which get their 

 supply of water from the artesian wells. There are 

 also two large wells at Springfield; one 8-inch that 

 supplies power for a 60-barrel flour mill, and one 

 4-inch used for city purposes. 



TEXAS. 



The White River Land and Irrigation Company, 

 of Plain view, Texas, has been incorporated, with G. M . 

 Slaughter, president, and R. P. Smythe, general 

 manager. 



WASHINGTON. 



The Entiat Irrigation Company, of Waterville, 

 Wash., has commenced work on a large irrigating 

 ditch, taking water from the Entiat river near where 

 it empties into the Columbia, and reclaiming several 

 thousand acres of land especially valuable for fruit 

 raising. 



