22 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



depth in the lime rock soils (admirably adapted for 

 alfalfa). In short, these soils will produce abundantly 

 all the crops of the temperate zone. This will be found 

 to be an excellent sugar beet section. All root crops 

 as well as grain, forage and leguminous products will 

 thrive abundantly. The natural grasses are of the 

 best. The range and foot hills furnish wild fruits, 

 gooseberries, raspberries, Eocky Mountain cherries, 

 plums, etc., in abundance. High altitude timber is 

 ample for years to come, scrub oak, cedar, mesquite, 

 pinion or scrub pine. Coal has been found within six 

 miles. Mineral float has been found. Pine timber is 

 near by. Fine limestone rock furnishes the kiln men, 

 and there are works in operation producing about 90 

 or 95 per cent pure lime. I noticed excellent building 

 stone also." 



. The writer has a theory that an investment in 

 irrigated lands has all of the safeguards offered bv the 

 purchase of life insurance with many added advan- 

 tages. The life insurance agent, after his seven or 

 eight unsuccessful attempts to get to his prospect, be- 

 gins by enlarging upon one's duty to those one may 

 have dependent upon him and after having firmly 

 established this duty proceeds to persuade him that the 

 one and only way to fulfill this duty is either to pay 

 such an amount as he can or perhaps cannot afford, as 

 long as he lives to his, the agent's company, or as an 

 alternative to pay a greater amount for say twenty 

 years and at that time receives a paid-up policy or an 

 annuity, or maybe a proportion of what has been paid 

 to the company in cash. 



One buying a tract of irrigated land may obtain 

 all of the security offered by the insurance company 

 and, more than that, the use of the land with twenty or 

 thirty per cent increase as soon as the land begins to 

 produce. 



If he is a laboring man and by any mischance 

 loses his job, he has a place where he can provide a 

 home and a living for his family amid surroundings 

 such as those who have gained a competence spend a 

 great deal of money in seeking for an avenue in 

 which to spend their leisure time. 



If he is a salaried man he can, instead of just 

 making ends meet, amid uncomfortable surroundings, 

 with a small percentage of the time necessary to earn 

 a living as an employe of some one else, establish him- 

 self as his own master over his own home, which will 

 produce as much if not more than he has heretofore 

 been earning and leave him at the end of the year with 

 money in the bank and an assurance that he can obtain 

 the same and usually greater results in succeeding 

 years. While, if he simply wishes to invest his money, 

 he has purchased something which no changes in 

 financial conditions, no weakness of trusted employes, 

 no mistakes in the judgment of others, can take away 

 from him and which will produce an income that no 

 other investment offering even a portion of the security 

 could approach. 



Of course, it is not the idea of this article to at- 

 tempt to supplant insurance investments by any 

 others, but in many instances the added advantages 

 offered by land that will produce a crop every year as 

 surely as each year rolls around, should be carefully 

 considered before any other investment is made. 



(Any inquiries regarding any of the irrigation enterprises men- 

 tioned in these columns will receive prompt attention if sent to Editor 

 IRRIGATION AGE, Chicago.) 



IDAHO AN EMPIRE OF DIVERSIFIED WEALTH 

 AND OPPORTUNITIES. 



BY A .T. TAYLOR. 



Out-West-in-Idaho, that's where they are doing things! 

 There is more activity, more prosperity and greater de- 

 velopment in Idaho today than in any other state in the 

 Union. The thousands of acres of rolling prairie lands 

 that but a few years ago were the playground of the 

 coyote and the sagehen are now being rapidly converted 

 to agriculture. Railroads are stretching out their lines 

 in every direction, new towns are springing up like magic, 

 and all these changes are taking place so rapidly that 

 only instantaneous photography can mark the trans- 

 formation. 



Men talk of enterprises in Idaho involving millions as 

 though money were a mere incident to the object to be 

 attained. Everything is large and liberal there, and all 

 things attendant upon success and prosperity seem to 

 have been born of a common parent. 



Nature in the distribution of her wealth has been 

 prodigal to Idaho. Her mountains contain many rich and 

 dividend-paying mines, and yet the great development in 

 this direction is to come. These same mountains which 

 surround her valleys form a great water-shed which in 

 the near future will irrigate millions of acres of fertile 

 farms and will furnish power second only to that of the 

 Niagara. 



Read this from Governor F. R. Gpoding's statement at 

 the conference of governors at Washington, May 14, 1908, 

 and take off your hat to Idaho: 



"Idaho leads all the Western States as to the amount 

 of irrigated lands and land open to settlement. The total 

 acreage now under irrigation is 1,656,593, while more than 

 $20,000,000 has been spent in constructing 9,000 miles of 

 canals and ditches. Idaho has a wonderfully rich soil. It 

 is formed by the disintegration of the Columbia River 

 lava, or basalt rock, which, mixed with the lava dust that 

 fell in great showers over the whole country ages ago, 

 has formed a soil of marvelous fertility. Idaho appreciates 

 the needs of settlers and capital. Idaho offers to the 

 bona fide settler a clear title to his lands and water; to 

 the investor a careful administration of all the rights of 

 capital provided for by the Congress of the United States 

 in the Carey Act; and to both, by closest inspection of 

 projects as to plans and personnel, a fair deal with square 

 people." 



The conditions for farming are so ideal that to dispose 

 of land, once there is water upon it, is but a secondary 

 consideration, yet there are thousands of acres of land 

 in Idaho at the present time practically worthless for 

 agricultural purposes, which within the next two years will 

 be under thorough irrigation systems and will be worth 

 $35.00 per acre and upward. The man who is lucky 

 enough to get in on the ground floor and acquire forty 

 or eighty acres of this land may consider himself fortunate 

 indeed. 



In Lincoln County alone there are over 600,000 acres 

 of agricultural land, all of which will soon be under irri- 

 gation systems. The rapidly growing and prosperous 

 town of Shoshone, on the Oregon Short Line, is the 

 county seat of Lincoln County and centrally located within 

 this vast area of irrigable lands, making it the most con- 

 venient point from which to visit all the Carey Act projects 

 as well as the improved ranches in the county. 



A few miles east of Shoshone are 50,000 acres of 

 splendid agricultural land which is the property of the 

 Idaho Irrigation Company. In June, 1909, this entire 

 tract will be put upon the market under the Carey Act. 

 This, with 50,000 acres of irrigated land of the Twin 

 Falls North Side Irrigation Company, are all tributary to 

 Shoshone, which loudly emphasizes the future prominence 

 of the town and places it conspicuously in line as one of 

 the coming cities of Idaho. 



The citizens of Shoshone are a live and progressive 

 people, proud of their town and willing with their dollars 

 to back their unbounded faith in its future, which is ap- 

 parent in its substantial stone and brick business blocks, 

 its imposing court house, its fine schools and churches, 

 and its handsome residences. It has good hotels, lodging 

 houses and restaurants, and affords splendid accommoda- 

 tions for visitors. 



