THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



359 



newly irrigated lands on the Billings bench. In the 

 short space of time from July 20 to August 15 the 

 company sold over 2,000 acres of land, receiving a total 

 of $100,000 from the sales. The land was sold to farm- 

 ers from the middle east principally, but a number of 

 the new settlers were from the state of New York and 

 other seaboard states. 



THE LOSS OF IRRIGATION WATER BY EVAPO- 

 RATION AND HOW TO LESSEN IT.* 



Elwood Mead, the irrigation expert, was once in 

 Germany and had great difficulty in having his German 

 understood. Especially was this so at the table. On 

 one occasion he became provoked at a waiter who failed 

 to bring him what he wanted and drew from his pocket 

 a pencil and paper. He wanted mushrooms 'and he 

 drew one on the paper. The waiter nodded that he 

 understood and proudly returned with what he thought 

 he wanted an umbrella which was all the more a 

 joke because Professor Mead is such a believer in irri- 

 gation. Oregon Irrigator. 



."The forest falls," wrote James J. Hill to the 

 irrigation congress, "the mine is depleted of its precious 

 contents, even the seas might, if searched too severely, 

 cease to give tribute, but the soil is the last unfailing 

 resource. Play games as we may with picture cards, 

 adorned with other names, the man at the bottom, the 

 man with his foot upon a plot of ground, the man who 

 is drawing from the earth food for himself and others 

 is the foundation for all advancement as well as of all 

 prosperity. Make way for him; for where he is decay- 

 ing the pillars of the state are weakening, and all the 

 more impressive forms of wealth are trembling toward 

 the dust." 



"One of our Government's irrigation projects now 

 under way involves the erection of the highest dam 

 in the world, a dam that will rise 240 feet above the 

 water line and will extend eighty-eight feet further 

 down to bedrock. This is to dam the canon of the 

 Shoshone River, in the Big Horn basin, in Wyoming. 

 The dam is at the narrowest point in the canon, the 

 granite walls of the river being here but sixty-five feet 

 apart. But the dam will create a lake covering 5,000 

 acres which will take the rainfall from the watershed 

 of 1,250 square miles, and will store enough water 

 to irrigate 150,000 acres of very choice land. The 

 water from this lake will be carried to these lands 

 through seven miles of 14-foot tunnels bored 'through 

 the solid rock. For the building of the dam itself 

 60,000 barrels of cement alone will be needed. This 

 project is one of the most ambitious feats of irrigation 

 engineering in the world. It will cost the Government 

 about $2,000,000, but it will create land values to the 

 Government of about $4,000,000 and to the land owners 

 almost immediately upon their purchase of about $15,- 

 000,000. The annual crop from the irrigated land 

 under this dam could easily be worth twice the cost 

 of the entire dam and irrigation works. The man in 

 charge of this great work is Mr. Jeremiah Ahem, a 

 Government district engineer. This project is one that 

 Col. Bill Cody and General Miles at one time at- 

 tempted to finance for operation through private capi- 

 tal and failed to raise the necessary funds. 



BY SAMUEL FORTIER, 



In charge Pacific District Irrigation and Drainage Investigations. U. S 

 Department of Aericulture. 



The loss of irrigation water is becoming an old 

 theme in a region where the practice of irrigation is 

 comparatively new. The reasons for so general an in- 

 terest are obvious. Of the many natural resources of the 

 west, water ranks first in importance. It is yearly be- 

 coming more difficult to obtain, and of higher value. 

 So long, therefore, as water is needed to overcome the 

 aridity of an otherwise fertile soil, its economical use 

 is likely to constitute one of the chief problem? of 

 western agriculture. 



For a number of years the agents in charge of 

 irrigation investigations of the office of experiment 

 stations of the United States department of agriculture 

 have devoted a part of their time in seeking to deter- 



Send $2.50 for The Irrigation Age 

 1 year, and The Primer of Irrigation 



PROF. SAMUEL FOKTIER. 



IQ charge Pacific District Irrigation and Drainage Investigations, 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



mine the extent of the various losses to which irriga- 

 tion water is subjected. As a result of their efforts 

 in this direction the losses caused by leakage, evapora- 

 tion and percolation from a large number of typical 

 canals have been ascertained and from these data it 

 has been possible to estimate somewhat accurately the 

 total loss from these causes. In like manner the waste 

 of water due to faulty and crude methods of measure- 

 ment and distribution have been pointed out, as well 

 as the large losses which occur on most irrigated fields 

 through carelessness in not properly preparing the 

 surface, or through unskilled methods of applying the 

 water. 



The investigation of the various ways in which 

 water is wasted from the time it is taken from the 



Paper read before Thirteenth National Irrigation Congress, Portland, 

 Oregon. 



