THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



VOL xv . 



CHICAGO, SEPTEMBER, 1901. NO 12 



The Draught The experience of the present 

 an Eye Opener year because of the drought 

 will be liable to change the views of some 

 of our congressmen in regard to irrigation. 

 Missouri farmers are losers this year by 

 $100,000,000, Kansas as much more, Neb- 

 raska nearly as much, while Arkansas and 

 Iowa are heavy losers. They are pointing 

 to the great results of irrigation in Colo- 

 rado and other states, and &rc now willing 

 to concede the benefits of irrigation. 



Plenty of 

 Water. 



Prof. Newell says that the 

 water power in the Yuba river 

 is picked up by electricity and made to 

 light even the city of Stockton, more than 

 one hundred miles away. But on the 

 way, where the wire crosses the valleys', 

 the farmers run pumps by it to irrigate 

 their lands. Now, while it would be most 

 difficult to turn many Eastern rivers into 

 canals through which to irrigate the soil, 

 it would be comparatively easy for the 

 farmers to join and obtain power enough 

 from many of the streams to run pumps to 

 irrigate vast areas of land, and in that way 

 we expect the first efforts toward exten- 

 sive irrigation will be made in that region. 

 That will interfere with no riparian 

 rights; it will foul no streams, and when 

 the irrigation season is over, the power 

 can thresh the wheat, bale the hay, saw 

 the wood, light the house and stables, and 

 farming will be exalted. 



In the same way we suspect that mighty 

 areas of desert in the arid belt will be 

 brought under cultivation, for, as a rule, 

 there is plenty of water below the surface 



of our desert lands. The Snake river can 

 supply power to run a million pumps, and 

 there is water power enough in Utah to 

 turn a world. The next twenty years will 

 make a transformation in this West, and 

 this year's sorrowful experience ought to 

 quicken the minds of Eastern people to 

 cause them to try never to be quite as 

 badly left again as they have been this 

 year. 



Reclaiming the A recent dispatch from 

 ZuyderZee. The Hague indicates the 



enterprise of the Hollanders in the mat- 

 ter of land reclamation. The government, 

 it is stated, has introduced a bill in parlia- 

 ment for the reclaiming of 113,666 acres 

 from the Zuyder Zee, at an estimated cost 

 of 95,000,000 florins. The scheme will 

 add 2,000,000 florins, or about $800.000, 

 to the budget annually for the next fifty 

 years. 



The Nile The erection of the Nile dam 

 Dam. by t he B r iti s h Government 



will form a lake with a capacity of over a 

 billion tons of water. When the sluice 

 gates are open, while the Nile is at high 

 water, something like five million tons of 

 water will rush through every hour. 



Irrigation Irrigation is rapidly coming to 

 in Canada. t ^ e f ront i n t ^ e rcg i on O f ij g i lt 



rainfall in Western Canada. Some 660,- 

 000 acres of land were reclaimed during 

 the past year, and canals were constructed 

 to the length of 525 miles. 



The Prospects Great will be the glory of the 

 of irrigation. w est w h en s h e shall have at- 

 tained to her full stature through the re- 



