THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



143 



Clark, president of the Wenatchee Canal Company, in devel- 

 oping this project, says : 



"The Wenatchee Canal Company began the construction 

 of its large irrigation system in 1902, spending $225,000 for 

 the original canal. In 1906 the canal was enlarged to carry 

 sufficient water for irrigating 6,000 additional acres across 

 the Columbia river. In order to accomplish this it was 

 necessary to build a great highway bridge at Wenatchee, 

 costing $200,000. On this bridge there are two large pipes 

 extending from the canal on the west side to the extension 

 east of Wenatchee. This land is now all planted to fruit. 



"This increase in the irrigation systems around Wenat- 

 chee will mean much to the community. Six years ago the 

 land was not watered, the result from irrigation has been to 

 make the town and country prosperous. The additional irri- 

 gation project will only open more land and while it may 

 cost more than the present gravity systems the results in the 

 past have shown that no expense in securing water can be 

 too great, as the returns from the land are so great that any 

 cost for water within reason is soon overcome." 



GARDEN CITY KANSAS 



VICINITY 



NATIONAL IRRIGATION CONGRESS. 



"Governor Davidson will appoint a delegation from 

 Wisconsin to attend the seventeenth National Irrigation 

 Congress at Spokane, August 9 to 14, and he trusts that the 

 state may be well represented. If it is possible for the gov- 

 ernor to attend, he will gladly do so." 



O. G. Munson, private secretary at Madison, conveys 

 the foregoing information in a letter to R. Insinger, chair- 

 man of the local board of control, adding: 



"I assure you that Governor Davidson fully appreciates 

 the importance qf the irrigation congress, and is willing to 

 do all he can to promote its success." 



Mr. Insinger has also received advices from governors 

 in middle-western, eastern and southern states, intimating 

 that they will participate in the exercises at Governors' Day 

 during the Congress. George E. Barstow of Barstow, Texas, 

 president of the organization, will preside, and among the 

 speakers will be James J. Hill, chairman of the board of 

 directors of the Great Northern Railway company; Howard 

 Elliott, president of the Northern Pacific Railway com- 

 pany; United States Senator Cummins of Iowa, and Charles 

 S. Osborne, regent of the University of Michigan. 



It is also likely that President Taft and several mem- 

 bers of his cabinet will be here one or more days. Among 

 the other speakers will be government representatives, rail- 

 road presidents and experts in their lines to discuss for- 

 estry, reservoir, dams, reclamation of swamp and arid lands, 

 good roads, homebuilding, education and other problems in 

 which the entire country is interested. There will be a 

 demonstration of the scientific application of water, also 

 an industrial parade, a march in review by the Irrigation 

 Army, and the singing of the Inigation Ode by a chorus 

 of 1,000. 



Tennessee will be represented by a strong delegation 

 at the Seventeenth National Irrigation Congress in Spo- 

 kane August 9 to 14, when forestry, deep waterway, good 

 roads, reservoir, reclamation of arid and swamp lands, 

 homebuilding and other problems will be discussed by ex- 

 perts in their various lines. It is expected there will be 

 from 4,000 to 5,000 delegates and visitors from various 

 parts of the United States and Canada, Europe, the latin 

 republics and the Orient. George E. Barstow of Barstow, 

 Texas, president of the congress, will preside. 



Hon. Malcom R. Patterson, governor of Tennessee, 

 writes from Nashville in a letter to R. Insinger, chairman 

 of the local board of control, that he will appoint delegates 

 to the Congress, adding: "In regard to my attendance, I 

 could not give you a definite answer this far in advance." 

 However, Mr. Insinger, who invited Governor Patterson to 

 participate in the exercises at Governors' Day, believes that 

 the chief executive of Tennessee will attend. 



"We already have favorable replies from several gov- 

 ernors in the Southland," Mr. Insinger said, "and, since 

 the people of Tennessee are vitally interested in many of 

 the questions to be discussed by this Congress, I have every 

 reason to believe that Governor Patterson will not only ap- 

 point a representative delegation but will 'also honor the 

 City of Spokane and the Pacific Northwest by his presence. 



^ 



By R. H. Faxon. 



The impression erroneously prevails, and with it some 

 detriment to western Kansas, that this section is. a tree- . 

 less plain. 



This is doubtless due to the fact that the western por- 

 tion of Kansas was once a part of the Great American 

 Desert, and is always referred to in the government re- 

 ports as in the Great Plains Area. 



Afforestation has gained great headway in Kansas, and 

 in no other place is this fact more pronounced than sur- 

 rounding Garden City. The name of the town is not an 

 exaggeration, it is a fact it is a Garden City, and how and 

 why it is so may be of some interest and certainly is to 

 the credit of not only the present-day generation but the 

 previous generation of pioneers, who made this section 

 what it is today. 



I was examining some old reports recently and came 

 across something that seemed to me like inspiration. It 

 foretold the glory and achievement of the Garden City 

 region, and it was little short of prophetic wisdom and 

 great discernment. It is contained in a report made by 

 the Commissioner of the United States General Land 

 Office, one Joseph S. Wilson, in the year 1868. A passage 

 of it that is worth the while to note follows: 



"The production of a thriving forest at some point 

 west of the one hundredth meridian, as it would establish 

 the fact of its practicability, would, without doubt, con- 

 tribute greatly to the value of that part of our domain. 

 Whether an enterprise of the kind, under the auspices of 

 the government, would be likely to realize the expecta- 

 tions of its projectors, would depend very much upon the 

 character of the persons who might be charged with the 

 duties and responsibilities of the undertaking. 



"It is scarcely to be doubted that the artesian well 

 system might be rendered a great success on the plains. 

 All the conditions appear favorable. The rainfall in the 

 vicinity of the mountains is as great as in many portions 

 of Central Europe; and the melting snows on the highest 

 crests feed the streams flowing from the sides of the 

 mountains until late in the summer. 



"The quantity of water thus flowing towards the 

 plains is thus very great, but much of the greatest quan- 

 tity sinks in the sand within fifty or sixty miles of the 

 foot of the mauntains, and as the strata dip eastward, the 

 water follows the same course, descending until it reaches 

 the impenetrable bed, and it seems very reasonable to sup- 

 pose that there are reservoirs at various points beneath 

 the surface of the plains that could be utilized by such 

 wells. 



"Even the water that fails on the plains themselves, 

 not by any means inconsiderable, soon sinks into the parched 

 and sandy soil in much larger quantities than those carried 

 off by drainage or evaporation. 



"If this matter were thoroughly tested and the fact 

 established, the confidence it would inspire as to the re- 

 claimability of the least inviting portion of the plains 

 would be very great, and would result in the rapid settle- 

 ment and improvement of that part of our national ter- 

 ritory." 



The above prophetic and significant words were writ- 

 ten by a government officer more than forty years ago. 

 He suggested a course then that persistently attracted 

 itself to the pioneers. They held crude and vague ideas, 

 many of them impractical; but when the period of buffalo- 

 baiting and Indian-depredation was over, and after the 

 first of the grazing cycles was ended, the mind of man in 

 this western Kansas section turned to more permanent 

 things. Then he began to reason it all out; and while I 

 doubt whether the musty old tome I found in a library 

 here and whose passage I have just written, was ever seen 

 by any of these western Kansas pioneers, I know it to be a 

 fact that a generation ago many of them clung with pertinacity 

 to these selfsame ideas. Sooner or later they were going, 

 to test it all out. Many of them did not live to see the 



