206 



THE IKRIGATION AGE. 



charge of the survey as chief engineer, and was ably 

 assisted by Mr. Z. N. Vaughn, of Boise, field supervisor ; 

 J. W. Shepperd and H. C. Smith, of Moscow; W. N. 

 Oibb, of Genessee, Idaho; J. P. Taylor, of Pocatello, 

 Idaho; Lindsey Hudson, of Salt Lake, Utah, and A. 

 D. P. Janney, of Leesburg, Va., instrumentmen. 



At Henry's Lake, the extreme head of irrigation 

 on Snake Eiver, it was found that about 15,000 acres 

 of land lying about the lake and along the outlet were 

 topographically susceptible of irrigation, but that the 

 small mountain streams upon which the land depends 

 are entirely inadequate to serve this area. In fact, 

 only about 4,500 acres of this fine body of land are 

 actually watered and the entire flow of these streams 

 is now in use. This is a cattle-raising country and 

 considerable land in Henry Lake bottoms requires no 

 water to make it suitable for grazing. 



In Sheridan valley and along Shotgun Creek prac- 

 tically the same conditions obtain, there being some- 

 thing over 5,000 acres for which there is no water 

 supply. 



At Island Park, which lies in a bend of the river, 

 there is a fine body of land owned by a number of the 

 officials of the Oregon Short Line. They have built 

 fine summer houses there and have a: splendid farm, 

 of which about 1,300 acres is irrigated. 



After passing Island Park the river flows through 

 a canyon, along which are some magnificent cataracts, 

 but no water for irrigation is diverted until a point 

 perhaps six miles above St. Anthony is reached. The 

 Marysville country, a very fertile though somewhat roll- 

 ing and broken tract, is entirely dependent upon Pall 

 Eiver for irrigation. Fall Eiver is a large tributary to 

 the Snake, sometimes called Middle Fork. A large 

 rolling country on the south side of this river is also 

 under irrigation and is being rapidly settled up. 



The country surrounding St. Anthony is remark- 

 able for the porosity of its soil, composed largely of 

 loose sand and gravel, which absorbs water very rapidly. 

 So great are the percolative qualities of this soil that 

 sub-irrigation is practiced very extensively. The Egin 

 bench, to the west, seems to be a catchment basin filled 

 with gravel, and after the gravel is once saturated, 

 which may be done during the high water, the ground 

 can be kept moist by simply holding water in the canals 

 and laterals. The duty of the water through this sec- 

 tion, however, is extremely low, ranging from eight to 

 fifteen feet per acre; i. e., water equivalent to a depth 

 of eight to fifteen feet, spread over the entire irrigated 

 area, is applied during the irrigation season. An ordi- 

 nary duty, under normal conditions, is two to three 

 acre feet. 



South of St. Anthony and between the branches of 

 the Teton Eiver lies an almost uniformly level and well 

 watered area, surrounding the new beet sugar factory 

 at Sugar City. The duty of waier all through this sec- 

 tion is rather low, but irrigation is so easily accom- 

 plished that so long as there is sufficient water in the 

 streams the farmers are satisfied with the conditions. 



The Teton basin is a little world by itself at the 

 foot of the magnificent Teton peaks. These towering 

 sentinels stand guard over the destines of an isolated 

 community, and their snowy summits take on that in- 

 finite variety of light and color effects so marvelous 

 in the higher altitudes. The basin is a group of great 

 plains, with stiff slopes toward the Teton Elver, and 

 their irrigation is dependent on this stream and its 



mountain tributaries, which are entirely inadequate, 

 there being over 40,000 acres of splendidly situated 

 land for which there is no water. Some of the ditches 

 which serve the irrigated portions head in Wyoming, 

 and all have excessive grade and are badly gutted out. 

 Part of the basin lies in Fremont County and part 

 in Bingham, and the people living in the latter county 

 are very seriously cut off from the county seat at Black- 

 foot both by distance and by the difficulty of travel to 

 and fro. 



A rather remarkable condition exists a few miles 

 south and west of Eexburg, where water appears to flow 

 in opposite directions. Several large canals from the 

 South Fork take a northerly course and meet and over- 

 lap upon other canals from the Teton Eiver having a 

 southerly direction. As a matter of fact, the land has 

 a light slope to the west, which may be taken advantage 

 of by either set of canals. Every indication of delta 

 formation is here apparent, and the deposits of centuries 

 have brought the valley up to such a uniform level that 

 the channel of the South Fork, from where it leaves 

 the canyon to its junction with the North Fork, is 

 badly broken up and is constantly changing. Poole's 

 Island and Butler's Island are bodies of land of con- 

 siderable area cut off by various sloughs and channels 

 from the rest of the valley. The soil here is a porous 

 gravel of great depth, which absorbs water so rapidly 

 that irrigation is only accomplished by the extravagant 

 use of water. In some instances the rough, shallow 

 channels of natural sloughs serve as irrigation aque- 

 ducts, and the loss in these by seepage and evaporation 

 must be enormous. 



Shortly after the irrigation season opens, it is 

 apparent that the gravel becomes saturated, as water 

 rises in the various creeks and springs through the 

 locality, and is then frequently used again for irriga- 

 tion. Some of the lowlands sub-irrigate quite freely 

 when water is applied to the lands above. It is prob- 

 able that a large percentage of the waier lost by the 

 excessive seepage finally finds its way back to the river, 

 and thus becomes available for systems farther down. 

 As wells ten to fifteen feet deep almost anywhere in 

 this part of the valley produce a constant supply of 

 water, and as wind is one of the characteristics of the 

 country, it would seem that windmills might be a 

 good irrigating proposition where surface water is not 

 obtainable. 



In some cases, notably that of the Great Feeder, 

 the erratic course of the river has been checked and 

 its waters directed into the channel most favorable for 

 man's use. The owners of the Great Feeder have con- 

 structed a diversion dam of piles and cribbing over a 

 :nile long, which diverts some of the water of the South 

 Fork into an old channel of the river known as the Dry 

 Bed, through a canal carrying 2,060 second feet. By 

 this means water is supplied to a number of canals 

 heading on the older channel. 



South of the South Fork lies a fine body of farm- 

 ing land, which also receives the benefit of the waters 

 of Willow Creek and other mountain streams, but is 

 mostly served by the many large channels from the 

 South Fork. Some of these use Willow Creek as a 

 channel. This, however, is not good irrigation practice, 

 as the bed of the creek is so rough and the alignment 

 so irregular that there is excessive loss by seepage and 

 evaporation. 



On the west side of the river the Butte and Market 

 Lake canal, construr-tod by former Secretary of State 



