THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



organized and a fine chemical engine is ready for use; 

 a full mile of cement walks have been builded, and along 

 Maine street, besides five or six good, substantial frame 

 houses, there have been built four fine brick business 

 houses, two one-story concrete buildings and one two- 

 story concrete building; a hotel costing $50,000, built 

 of white brick; a school house costing $25,000, also 



O. S. L. Depot, Gooding, Idaho, at which ten to fifteen cars of 

 freight are received every day and an average of one hundred cars 

 stand unloaded on the tracks for want of unloading space. 



of white brick, and about 150 dwellings, sme cost- 

 ing as high as $3,500. Eight buildings of brick and 

 concrete, each two stories high and from 60 to 80 feet 

 long, are now under construction, and a three-story 

 opera house will be ready for the next season's pleasure. 

 A thousand happy, busy and prosperous people in- 

 habit the town, and Gooding boasts of one of the best 

 and most active commercial clubs in the west. The 



West side of Main street, Gooding, Idaho, looking south. One 



year ago this ground was -an alfalfa field and sheep pasture. City 



water tower and 50,000-gallon tank and the Hotel Lincoln in the back- 

 ground. 



Commercial Club has its own rooms elegantly furnished 

 and is making a record for its energy and push. 



What has done all this? Irrigation. The magic 

 touch of water to the desert lands that have lain since 

 the beginning of time accumulating the necessary con- 

 stituents for plant life waiting the unlocking of water 

 to begin its labors for mankind. 



Spokane Country Lands Made Productive Through Pri- 

 vate Enterprises. 



BY AUGUST WOLF. 



When President Eoosevelt declared, in a recent 

 message to Congress, that no government policy for the 

 betterment of our internal conditions has been more 

 fruitful of good than irrigation, he had, of course, in 

 mind also the commendable work which is being done 

 by private irrigationists in various parts of the north- 

 west, and, especially in the inland empire. Recognizing 

 that the policy of reclamation is one of the wisest pro- 

 visions made by the federal government, the chief exe- 

 cutive of the nation has .championed the cause and in 

 this his influence has been of immeasurable benefit. 



BLUEWATER \&LLEY 



:: NEW MEXICO :::: 



The work in the valley is progressing nicely. The 

 settlers are ploughing their land to get it ready for plant- 

 ing and are building houses and making other improve- 

 ments. The difference between the situation here at Blue- 

 water and that encountered in northern latitudes is im- 

 pressed upon one, as here instead of being forced to sus- 

 pend outside operations at this time of year, the farmers con- 

 tinue ploughing in comfort practically all winter. 



There is talk' of a creamery being established in the 

 valley which would, of course, enable the settler with a 

 few cows to begin getting a cash income from the start. 

 The fact that butter is now being shipped into the coun- 

 try from points as far distant as Chicago is, perhaps, as 

 good an argument as any to show the demand for cream- 

 ery products. Fort Wingate alone should use at least 

 forty tubs of butter per week and a considerable quantity 

 of cheese. This alone should take the product of four 

 hundred cows. The large camps of the American Lum- 

 ber Company, within twenty miles, the coal town of Gal- 

 lup, within sixty miles, and Albuquerque, within about 

 one hundred miles, would consume enough to take the 

 milk of cows which it would take a large proportion of 

 the products which can be raised in the valley for some 

 time to come to feed. At the present time, early morn- 

 ing trains enable milk shippers to reach the Albuquerque 

 market, where milk retails for 40 cents per gallon. Albu- 

 querque, at the present time, ships in 75 per cent of the 

 milk consumed there. 



Mr. Walker, one of the settlers, who is familiar 

 with the conditions under which the famous New Mexican 

 celery is grown in other parts of the territory, where it 

 nets as high as $1,200 per acre, says that the conditions 

 are better for raising celery at Bluewater than where 

 these phenomenal results were attained. 



Cabbages, onions, asparagus, tomatoes, potatoes, 

 cauliflower, beans, turnips, carrots, parsnips, peppers, 

 Mexican chili and in fact almost all other crops do 

 equally as well. 



The Bluewater Development Company has, it is said, 

 plans on foot to induce graduates of agricultural col- 

 leges to settle at Bluewater, which should give to all 

 settlers the best opportunity to observe modern and im- 

 proved methods together with their results. 



It is seldom that an enterprise is encountered where 

 the company having the development in charge evidences 

 so much interest in the welfare of settlers. They expect 

 to employ an expert in agriculture who will advise all 

 settlers as to the best crops to plant and the proper 

 method of handling them, as well as the proper and 

 efficient use of the water. They do and will urge all 

 settlers to keep up a neat appearance about their places 

 and provide in their contracts for a board, the duty of 

 which is to look after the general welfare of all the resi- 

 dents of the valley. 



It is hard to believe, after looking over this beauti- 

 ful valley, and seeing the class of settlers coming into 

 it, that the impression could have gone abroad that New 

 Mexico is a country inhabited by Mexicans employing 

 only crude methods of agriculture and cruder methods of 

 life. 



The modern high class construction put into the 

 plant, the crops carefully stacked or otherwise stored for 

 use when needed, except those, of course, which have 

 been sold, all belie this assumption. 



It is not difficult to imagine the remainder of the 

 lands under cultivation watered by the flow from two 

 hundred and forty square miles of the wooded water 

 shed in the Zuni mountains stored until needed in the 

 magnificent natural reservoir, supplemented by the sub- 

 stantial dam and controlling tunnel constructed through 

 the solid rock. This will indeed produce a community of 

 which any person may well be proud to be a member. 



