14 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



velopment ; was six years ago a sage brush plain. It has 

 today 3,200 acres under water with a population 

 of 3,500. Lewiston is located at the terminus of 

 sc branch of the Northern Pacific railway, running south 

 from the city of Spokane, and will be an important 

 point on the projected Northern Pacific cut-off which 

 will run from Missoula, Mont., through the Lolo Pass 

 and down the Clearwater Biver on to the Pacific 

 coast. It is also so situated that by lines of water 

 transportation its products can be conveyed down the 

 Snake River to the Columbia and down the Columbia 

 River to the Pacific Ocean. Around this city are some 

 of the best developed irrigation farms in the world, 

 where fruits as fine as any raised in the famed Snake 

 River valley are produced in large quantities. 



Lewiston, Idaho, is one of the oldest and richest 

 towns on the Pacific coast, and has been built up 



and for much of the fruit. Most of the fruit, however, 

 is shipped to the large mining towns of Montana, and 

 to the cities of Dakota and Minnesota, British Colum- 

 bia and Manitoba, where very good prices are obtained. 

 This point being so much nearer than California, and 

 the earliest in the maturing of fruits and vegetables of 

 any point in the Pacific Northwest, they easily com- 

 mand the markets to the north and east. Canneries 

 and pickle factories use the surplus. Several million 

 bushels of wheat are marketed at this point, being bought 

 in and shipped to the coast. Big flour mills will soon 

 consume a large share of it. Some 10,000 head of 

 cuttle are sent out yearly; 500 carloads of fruit; 500,000 

 pounds of wool, etc. With the completion of the Mis- 

 soula-Lewiston line of the Northern Pacific railway 

 choice fruits and vegetables will reach the mountain 

 towns of Montana in eight to twelve hours. 



T 



Soldier's Meadow Creek, One Stiffly Stream, Lewiston-Waha Project. 



wholly by the , trade of the great territory of which 

 it is the natural commercial center, by reason of its 

 location at the junction of the rivers. The opening 

 of the great Nez Perce Indian reservation six years 

 ago and the operations of the Vineland Company have 

 quadrupled its population in that period. It has four 

 banks, two newspapers, United Statrs landoffice, State 

 Supreme Court, county seat, State Normal School, etc. 

 So great are the natural advantages of the location that 

 Lewiston-Clarkston is certain to become an important 

 railroad center, and the entire Lewiston valley is none 

 too large for the one great town of the near future. 

 Lewiston-Clarkston is one town commercially. Ninety 

 per cent of the merchandise, banking and shipping 

 business of all that region is handled at Lewiston. 



Aside from the considerable home market, there 

 is ample demand in the near-by mining towns and 

 among the hill ranches for all the vegetables grown, 



It is also in the heart of an excellent mining and 

 timber country, it having been estimated that one hun- 

 dred and fifty millions in gold have been taken from 

 the mines in this vicinity and there are eight billion 

 feet of white pine on the upper Clearwater, which 

 must necessarily me handled at Lewiston. 



The Lewiston-Waha Company has during the past 

 year made surveys of Waha Lake basin and certain 

 ditch lines, including the main canal to its irrigable 

 lands, and in a report which was submitted to the 

 company by Mr. James D. Schuyler, of Los Angeles, 

 Cal., one of the best known hydraulic engineers in the 

 country, he states: "In the area bounded on the west 

 by the Snake River and on the east by Sweetwater 

 Creek, extending from Tammany Hollow northerly to 

 the Clearwater River, there is to be found more than 

 25,000 acres of choice agricultural land, lying in a sue- 



