334 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



rights whenever said holder sold or leased to another 

 party. Such a plan would not be difficult to work and 

 would entirely do away with the wildcat schemes that 

 are now so frequently promoted for no other purpose 

 than to enrich the promoters by selling unguaranteed 

 water rights calling for a high duty to innocent pur- 

 chasers. In such instances common justice would re- 

 quire the grantor of a perpetual right to the use of water 

 from any stream to protect the grantee in his purchase. 

 What would be still better and safer, would be to re- 

 quire the State to guarantee not only the title, but suffi- 

 cient water for the needs of the land. The State may 

 shirk this responsibility a few years longer, but it can 

 not forever maintain its integrity and remain an in- 

 terested party to the deception that is practiced upon 

 inexperienced and innocent purchasers of water rights 

 under canals getting water from streams whose entire 

 flow has been previously appropriated under sanction 

 of the State. 



RECLAIM MUCH LAND. 



OPPORTUNITIES IN IDAHO. 



BY HON. T. W. HUNT, EX-GOVERNOR OF IDAHO. 



Scheme Involves Changing Course of a Big Stream. 



A plan by a Seattle engineer is announced to re- 

 claim more than 40,000 acres of the most valuable and 

 fertile land in British Columbia and northern Wash- 

 ington. 



Sumas prairie, lying between the international 

 boundary line and the Fraser Eiver, just east of the 

 Northern Pacific, is a large tract of fertile prairie land 

 which is overflowed by high water from the Fraser for 

 two months every year, says the Seattle Times. It is 

 considered the richest soil in British Columbia, but is 

 unavailable for agricultural purposes because of being 

 flooded each year just in the middle of the farming sea- 

 son. 



The land is clear and level and during the balance 

 of the year produces rich crops of wild grass, which 

 make ideal pasture. The inhabitants, however, all have 

 to be provided with "summer places" in the mountains 

 to which they may take their cattle. 



The Sumas scheme has failed hitherto because of 

 engineering difficulties in caring for the waters of the 

 Chilliwack River, which runs across the district. 



The difficulties seem now in a fair way to be over- 

 come, however, and that through the efforts of two 

 Seattle men. Sterling B. Hill, a well known young 

 civil engineer of Seattle, a graduate of the University 

 of Washington, has solved certain problems that have 

 heretofore prevented the work, and his idea has the ap- 

 proval of the officials of British Columbia and the Su- 

 mas prairie. 



William H. Lewis, of the Lewis-Littlefield Com- 

 pany, took up the scheme in connection with Mr. Hill 

 and has succeeded in financing it through Trowbridge 

 & Niver Company, bond dealers in Chicago. 



The scheme is unique in its requiring the change of 

 course of the Chilliwack River, a large stream, which 

 will have to be carried around the district instead of 

 through it. This has been the principal difficulty in the 

 past. The district itself is easily dyked, as only the end 

 of it is opened to the river and a dyke of two miles will 

 be sufficient to protect the entire prairie. The dyking 

 and changing of the course of the river will be supple- 

 mented by large pumping plants to pump the water into 

 the Fraser River at high water and also to keep the 

 present bed of the lake dry. 



When the joint Congressional Committee on Irri- 

 gation visited Idaho a few weeks ago to examine the 

 work undertaken by the Government for the reclama- 

 tion of the arid lands of the West, Senator Dubois 

 observed that the only spot in the known world in the 

 temperate latitudes, open to the occupation of the white 

 race, lay in the Rocky Mountain states, in the valley of 

 the Snake and along other streams, which were being 

 developed by the Government with the purpose of sup- 

 plying homes to a people who love a larger freedom than 

 can be found in the more crowded portions of our 

 country. A few years ago the most enterprising men of 

 the West began the formation of irrigation companies, 

 and the construction of canals in Colorado, Montana, 

 Utah and Idaho, but at that time the value of irrigated 

 land was not so well recognized, nor had the demand 

 for it arrived, and many of these very well planned 

 enterprises resulted in financial failure. But there is 

 not one today favorably situated or well managed that 

 is not successful. 



It is not generally known by farmers that irrigated 

 land never requires artificial fertilization. The water 

 itself performs that agency and, under proper drainage, 

 washes out alkali and other injurious salts. If an 

 eastern farmer could call upon the elements and at 

 the exact stage and proper time measure a certain 

 quantity of rain upon his fields, he would not thank 

 anyone to insure his crops. Irrigation actually does 

 accomplish this purpose in its fullest sense. Drouth is 

 not a factor of uncertainty, nor do we have summer 

 rains or floods. 



A well laid out farm of 160 acres, favorably located 

 and arranged, can be irrigated by one man. Perhaps it 

 is for that reason that the older Rocky Mountain farm- 

 ers, raising hay almost exclusively, have acquired the 

 reputation of being lazy. 



In Idaho the Government is building a canal at 

 Minidoka to reclaim 100,000 acres, and is enlarging the 

 Boise River canal system to 'cover possibly 200,000 

 acres of new land. Private capital in this State is con- 

 structing canals at Twin Falls, 270,000 acres ; at Black- 

 foot, 95,000 acres; at Mountain Home, 15,000 acres; 

 at Glenns Frery, 25,000 acres; at Bruneau, 200,000 

 acres, and at Emmett, 25,000 acres. It is of the latter 

 that you have asked for some description. 



Emmett is situated on the banks of the Payette 

 river, is a rapidly growing town of 3,000 people, on a 

 standard gauge railroad, twenty-eight miles from 

 Nampa and thirty miles from Boise City. The river 

 emerges from a closed canyon four miles above Emmett 

 and the valley begins to spread to a width of seven or 

 eight miles, with the river in the center, and continues 

 a distance of fourteen miles before the hills on the north 

 side again break into the river. It is much like an oasis 

 in a desert and the view is one long to be remembered. 

 To the south is the divide between the Payette and 

 Boise Rivers and on the north a low range of hills and 

 the great rugged volcano, Squaw Butte, 2,000 feet high, 

 completely sheltering the valley between and making the 

 mildest climate in all of Southern Idaho. In the winter 

 season it is safe to count on weeks of weather when the 

 thermometer will not get under forty degrees above 

 zero, and will never go below zero during the entire 



