152 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



April 



Thousands of Nevada will soon have 

 New Homes. one of the largest irri- 

 gation systems in the 

 world. Mr. L. H. Taylor, District 

 Engineer for the United States Recla- 

 mation Service for Nevada, has recently 

 been in Washington and reports the sat- 

 isfactory progress of the Truckee Carson 

 reclamation project, of which he has im- 

 mediate charge. 



This project contemplates the utiliza- 

 tion of the waters of the Truckee and 

 Carson rivers for the irrigation of about 

 375,000 acres of sage brush desert in 

 western Nevada. These lands will fur- 

 nish homesteads of about 80 acres each 

 for about 4,500 families. It is expected 

 that, with the addition of the towns and 

 villages that will naturally spring up in 

 the district, the population of the state 

 will be increased in the next few years 

 by at least 60,000 people. 



Active construction is now in progress 

 on a main canal about 31 miles long, 

 w 7 hich is to divert the waters of Truckee 

 River to a large storage reservoir on the 

 lower Carson River. There the waters 

 of the two streams will be mingled and 

 impounded, and thence led out upon the 

 plains in the vicinity of the Carson and 

 Humboldt Sink. Two contracts for the 

 construction of different divisions of this 

 canal were made by the Secretary of the 

 Interior with E. B. and A. L. Stone 

 Company and C. A. Warren & Co., 

 California contracting firms, on August 

 28 and September 3, 1903, respectively. 

 Ground was broken on September 1 1 , 

 1903, and the work is to be finished by 

 November of the present year. In the 

 meantime, surveys for the requisite sys- 

 tem of distributing canals are well under 

 way, and the department will be ready 

 in the spring to contract for their con- 

 struction. This work will be followed 

 by the erection of a dam which will 

 form the reservoir on the Carson River. 

 The reservoir will have a total length 

 of about 1 8 miles and will flood over 

 10,000 acres of land to an average depth 

 of 28 feet. 



The lands to be irrigated by these 

 works aggregate about 300,000 acres, 

 situated in the lower portions of the 

 Truckee, Carson, and Humboldt River 

 basins. In the upper valley of the 



Truckee and Carson rivers some 75,000 

 acres of additional land will be supplied 

 from works to be constructed some time 

 in the future. As these great areas are 

 gradually brought under cultivation, 

 and a greater water supply is required, 

 ten additional reservoirs, including Lake 

 Tahoe, are to be added. 



Tree Careful horticulturists 



Surgery. treat a cavity in the 



trunk of an orchard tree 

 much as a dentist treats a hollow tooth. 

 The cavities are due to the work of 

 fungi whose spores find lodgment in 

 any wound in the bark, especially 

 such injuries as the tearing out or care- 

 less pruning of a branch. The fungi 

 attack the living tissues and rapidly 

 enlarge the hole by the decay of sur- 

 rounding portions of the wood. A.11 

 the decayed wood is grubbed out as far 

 as possible with a gouge or scraper. 

 The clean surface within the cavity 

 should be painted with coal tar, to kill 

 any germ of decay that might remain, 

 and the hole finally filled with Portland 

 cement, tamping-in firmly and smoothly 

 on the outside flush with the edges of 

 the cavity. The new bark will then 

 begin to close over the cement, and, if 

 the tree has vigor enough, will finally 

 completely cover it. The cement pre- 

 vents water from accumulating in the 

 cavity, which goes a long way toward 

 preventing the lodgment and growth 

 of the spores. 



In foreign forests under careful man- 

 agement the trees which show injury 

 of this nature receive the treatment 

 mentioned or some equivalent process. 



The oaks on the campus of the Uni- 

 versity of California have been treated 

 in this way for a number of years, with 

 very satisfactory results. 



Tangled in At the live-stock show 

 the Foliage. recently held in Chicago 

 Secretary of Agriculture 

 James Wilson was one of the speakers 

 at a mass meeting of cattlemen. Behind 

 him on the same platform, relates the 

 New York Herald, somewhat screened 

 from observation, sat Norman J. Col- 



