THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



and its canals this lake is the large reservoir conserv- 

 ing the winter's supply of river water and utilizing it 

 in the summer season is as large a territory as that 

 under the reclamation project. Lake McKinnie is 

 owned by the sugar company. 



Hence there is a large acreage under water con- 

 ditions that are certain. Besides this, there are the 

 many private plants, and the great utilization by small 

 owners of the underflow and shallow water by means of 

 raise with small gasoline engines. Never before was 

 there such an outlook before the Garden City country 

 as the spring season opens up. The land well soaked, 

 the acreage increased, mean better crops and more crops. 



The sugar company is about to complete its pump- 

 ing plant adjacent to Garden City. This is nearly a 

 replica of the government project. The groups of sta- 

 tions, the number of wells, the general arrangements, 

 with the central plant and transmission line, is very 

 similar to the government project. Work was com- 

 menced last summer, and the one thought was to make 

 it perfect, but to insure its readiness for work when 

 this spring's season began. The sugar company ex- 

 pects great results in the remarkably fertile country to 

 be watered by this plant. Not only this, but the sugar 

 company has made extensive alterations and strengthen- 

 ing of its reservoir, Lake McKinnie. 



Allied closely in this Garden City section with ir- 

 rigation is dry farming. Experiments along this line 

 have been conducted successfully here for some years. 

 The government and the state own and operate jointly 

 at Garden City an experimental station that is doing 

 good work. The state has not been as careful and as 

 lavish in its aid as the government, but the indication 

 is this defect will be cured this season. The farm is 

 well equipped, and the demonstration work that has 

 been done has resulted in much enlightenment to farm- 

 ers. Nor only this, but farmers who have seen have 

 gone forth and put into successful operation the ideas 

 they have gathered at the station. The result is that 

 where farmers were unable, for one reason or another, 

 to irrigate, they have tilled the soil so as best to conserve 

 the natural moisture, and some of the crop reports by 

 such intelligent farmers have been wonderful to relate. 

 As one direct result of such application, the increase in 

 potato raising has been marked. This section is not 

 nearly so dependent irpon Colorado as formerly for this 

 much-demanded product. 



Two subjects have been much agitated in Kansas, 

 particularly in Western Kansas, for the past year: 

 Forestry and good roads. Both have been the subjects 

 of discussion and campaigns in politics, one party, the 

 dominant one, having included them in its platform in 

 the state last year, and its candidate for governor hav- 

 ing called on the legislature for help in his biennial 

 message. The newspapers, especially a small group, and 

 one or two strong ones in Western Kansas, are entitled 

 to credit for starting this campaign. The result is not 

 wholly what is demanded, but is by way of encourage- 

 ment to those who have conducted the campaign. Ex- 

 cellent good roads laws were passed by the legislature 

 just adjourned, permitting, for the drier Western Kan- 

 sas, systematic road work on dirt roads, and country 

 and township campaigns under road officers. The for- 

 estry law was not a comprehensive one, but directed 

 more serious and intelligent attention to the subject 

 than ever before. 



It was only natural that Garden City and vicinity 



should be leaders in both forestry and good roads move- 

 ments. The headquarters of the Kansas national for- 

 est are at Garden City, and the town is alive to the 

 work of afforestation the government is doing in 

 Western Kansas. This has been so marked and the 

 success has been so great that it gives abundant in- 

 centive to private enterprise. The result is that there 

 has been more private planting of forest, shade and 

 use trees in Western Kansas than perhaps elsewhere in 

 the country. No small home is now complete without 

 its trees. Garden City is a veritable forest, and this 

 has led smaller adjacent towns to emulate its example. 

 Commercial tree planting has also become a factor in 

 Western Kansas. 



As to good roads, one of the first endeavors along 

 this line in Western Kansas was at Garden City, where 

 seven miles of good road through the sandhills country 

 to the south will be completed this spring. The forma- 

 tion is of gypsum-clay, making a splendid road, and 

 only needing the application of crude oil within a year 

 or so to make them permanent. This opens up to Gar- 

 den City a trade territory naturally its own, but rapidly 

 decreasing on account of impassable and imposible roads 

 when the campaign was begun. 



There is one marked factor in connection with these 

 two movements and the use of water by private persons 

 in a small way that is worthy of note and is the fore- 

 runner of what must necessarily occur in the country 

 at large sooner or later: The fact of self-dependence. 

 The conservation movement, now well grounded in the 

 country, cannot and should not depend entirely upon 

 governmental or state aid. If it does, it cannot succeed, 

 for, powerful as the government is, it cannot support 

 the burdens of all the states, however worthy. This 

 fact is nowhere better recognized than in Western Kan- 

 sas and at Garden City. It is, in its small and humble 

 way, endeavoring to set an example to the country in 

 self-dependence, and mark an about-face on the part of 

 the people in their abandonment of what they and their 

 state can themselves do by seeking more aid from the 

 general government than is proper or than the govern- 

 ment can justly sive. Further than that, the Garden 

 Citv spirit is typifying the necessarv change in the great 

 political policy that, while a great centralized govern- 

 ment is a great thing, it may become, through inactivity 

 of state and citizen, so top-heavy, so unwieldy, that it 

 may be crushed of sheer weight of burdens assumed. In 

 the opinion of this writer the spirit of Garden City in 

 respect of its humble and little labor, is, after all, the 

 greatest achievement a people or a community can do at 

 this stage of the times. 



So the outlook for the vear 1909 in the Garden City 

 vicinity is not onlv hopeful, but, more than that, is 

 cheerfiil in the extreme. The wonderful country that 

 nature gave it; the aid it has received from the general 

 government; the enterprise of its good citizens and of 

 outside capital : the cohesiveness of spirit and of pro- 

 prcssion shown, and its work along the line of self- 

 dependence and self-reliance are such that there is no 

 question about the position it has attained in the pro- 

 cession. 



Send $2.50 for The Irrigation Age 

 1 year, and the Primer of Irrigation 



