234 



THE IKRIGATION AGE. 



RECLAIMING OF THE ARID LANDS OF THE 

 NORTHWESTERN STATES. 



BY THOMAS COOPER, LAND COMMISSIONER NORTHERN 

 PACIFIC RAILWAY. 



No single feature of the development of the Great 

 Northwest the States off North-Dakota, Montana, Idaho, 

 Washington and Oregon is more significant of future 

 grea-tness than the work done during the last decade 

 in bringing the semi-arid land under cultivation and in 

 developing methods by which great areas are made im- 

 mensely productive. 



Irrigated land produce never failing crops. The land 

 and the water, primary elements in crop production, 

 are known quantities and can be depended upon. Ad- 

 jacent to the principal areas of the Northwest in which 



age benefited and the cost per acre, thus obtained, is 

 what the settler pays for the land and the water rights, 

 in ten annual payments without interest. 



The cost per acre varies with the cost of the project, 

 the term used by the Government engineers to desig- 

 nate irrigation plans arid work in a given district. On 

 projects so far undertaken the cost runs from $15 to 

 $30 an acre. The reclamation service carefully consid- 

 ers the character of the land, its proximity to markets 

 and transportation facilities before undertaking any 

 improvements, in order to make sure that there will be 

 left an ample margin of value above the cost of the work 

 when completed. 



The purchase money received by the Government 

 goes back again into the reclamation fund to be used 

 over again in building other canals and in supplying 

 water to new districts. 



Scene near Head of Mink Creek Canal. Oneida Irrigation District, Oneida County, Idaho. 



irrigation development is now in progress are splendid 

 home markets waiting to take all that the land will 

 produce. 



The land to be brought under cultivation through 

 the work of the United States Reclamation Service, the 

 organization through which the Federal Government is 

 carrying out the largest scheme of irrigation develop- 

 ment and irrigating work yet attempted, will be thrown 

 open to settlement as fast as the water is supplied, under 

 terms which from the standpoint of the settler will be 

 very reasonable. 



Land irrigated by the United States Government 

 will be subject to entry under the Homestead act, as 

 modified by the Reclamation act. The cost of irriga- 

 tion works and the expense of furnishing water to a 

 given district will be apportioned pro rata to the acre- 



The irrigation projects along the line of the North- 

 ern Pacific Railway on which work will probably be in- 

 augurated during the present year by the Government 

 Reclamation Service, are the Lower Yellowstone canal, 

 which will irrigate 40,000 acres in Montana and 20,000 

 acres in North Dakota, and several others of impor- 

 tance. The Yellowstone canal will take water from the 

 Yellowstone River at a point about thirteen miles be- 

 low Glendive, Mont. An association of the land owners 

 under the canal has been formed as required by the 

 Reclamation Service and is called the Lower Yellow- 

 stone Water Users' Association. It is expected that all 

 of the necessary preliminary work will be completed 

 within sixty days, after which contracts for the con- 

 struction of the canal will be awarded. 



On the Crow Reservation several canals are con- 



