THE IREIGATION AGE. 



225 



mind reverts to the details of this development. Towns 

 must be built and are already in the process of build- 

 ing. Hundreds of farm homes must be con- 

 structed and thousands of miles of fencing must 

 be built. Carloads of supplies, literally by the 

 thousand, must be brought from all directions 

 and unloaded in the new country. In the town 

 of Jerome, months before the time for the first 

 irrigation to begin, one may see numerous stores 

 crowded with buyers; hotels and lodging houses 

 overcrowded; and the several lumber yards do- 

 ing a business that keeps the proprietors on duty 

 every day and far into the night. A water 

 works system has been put in with fire pressure 

 for immediate protection, thus, at once, doing 

 what, in the east, usually requires years of agita- 

 tion to bring about. Warehouses are being built, 

 schools are already in session and churches have 

 been organized. The season's activity has begun 

 in earnest and, by February and March of this 

 year, every part of the great tract will be alive 

 with its new inhabitants, who will represent 

 every state. 



South of the Snake river canyon is the older 

 tract which three seasons of irrigation have trans- 

 formed from a sagebrush desert to a highly culti- 

 vated and productive region. Twenty thousand 

 people are here, and in the town of Twin Falls 

 are nearly 5,000 inhabitants enjoying an uninter- 

 rupted prosperity, amid all the luxuries and 

 conveniences that may be found in any eastern 

 city. 



Early in 1909, another tract of 40,000 acres, 

 adjoining the North Side, will be opened for 

 entry under the Carey Act, and the inquiries 

 for land are such that the officials believe it 

 be all filed upon within a few days after 



dred miles, or more. The town of Bliss, on the main 

 line of the Oregon Short Line, will become a bustling 



will 

 the 



Three-year-old Apple Tree. 



opening. This will be irrigated by extending the main 

 north side canal till it has reached a length of one hun- 



Where a Plant is Now Installed Furnishing Power for the 

 Twin Falls Tract, Having 150 Miles of High Transmission Lines. 

 Owned and Operated by the Great Shoshone & Twin Falls Water 

 Power Company. 



municipality under the influence of this new activity. 



The fertile valleys, the irrigated ranches, the im- 

 mense orchards of fruit of all kinds, and agricultural 

 products, the great herds of sheep, the marvelous moun- 

 tains, stored with all the metals, can be seen only by 

 those who have time to tarry awhile between the Rockies 

 and the Blue Mountains. 



The modern and important history of Idaho begins 

 properly with the discovery of gold at a point on the 

 Clearwater river in the northern part of the State, in 

 1860. In re-organizing the territories, in 1867, Mon- 

 tana and a large part of Wyoming were taken from their 

 original limits and Idaho given its present boundary. 

 The steady growth in population led, some twenty 

 years later, to application for admission to the union, 

 and, on July 3, 1890, by proclamation of President 

 Harrison, Idaho passed from a territorial government 

 into statehood, and was heralded as the forty-fifth state 

 "to join federal union. Since that time its growth and 

 development has been rapid. Idaho, in its present form, 

 embraces an area of 84,600 square miles, of which 510 

 square miles are covered by the waters of lakes, and it 

 ranks twelfth in size of the political divisions of the 

 United States. 



The general character of the country is mountain- 

 ous, with a gradual slope from the eastern border of the 

 state, which is defined by the main range of the Rocky 



