NEWS AND NOTES 



Irrigation Development in Washington 



FOUR th.m>:ml acres of historic 

 ground, surrounding old Fort Oka- 

 nogan. Wash., northwest of Spokane. 

 is to be put under ditch by J. < i. -Mc- 

 Donnell and J. U. Vallentine. and it i- 

 estimated that the cost of installing the 

 plant will be $I25,OOO. \Yater will be 

 taken from the Columbia River. 



Water for the tract, to be known as 

 Bridgeport Orchards, will be di-trib- 

 uted by gravity from a large reservoir. 

 A pumping plant with a capacity of 

 twenty thousand gallons a minute will 

 be installed, operated by a gas-producer 

 engine of two hundred horsepower. The 

 water will be lifted fifty feet into the 

 reservoir, from which it will be distrib- 

 uted through ditches. The domestic 

 water problem is easily solved, for the 

 reason that water can be reached by 

 boring only a few feet. Four and a 

 half mile- of ditches will be dug. 



Bridgeport is 738 feet above sea level. 

 A part of the land to be irrigated has 

 been under cultivation for years, and 

 there are several ten-year-old orchards. 

 Some of these have made remarkable 

 yields even without irrigation. 



With the exception of the Astoria 

 settlement, made by the elder John Ja- 

 cob A.stor, Fort Okanogan is the oldest 

 habitation of white men in the \orth- 

 we While the land will produce 



abundantly without irrigation, there 

 have been half a dozen project- started 

 during the la-t twenty \ears to put it 

 under the ditch, but all for some n as >n 

 have ended in failure. Now there i- 

 rvery indication that the district will 

 soon have railroad transportation by 

 the building of the Okanogan 1 

 trie Railway Company's line betv 

 Nighthawk and Brewster, Wash., by 

 Col. A. M. Dewey, >f Spokane, and his 

 associates, and this will mean rapid de- 

 velopment. Work on the line seventy- 

 five miles in length, will begin July i. 



The lands are cheap, costing not 

 more than $50 an acre, tin- being be- 

 cause of the lack of water and tran- 

 portation facilities. The < ireat Xorth- 

 ern Railway has completed the pur- 

 chase of a right of way between We- 

 natchee and Oroville, and is now ask- 

 ing for an easement across te lands 

 which indicates that it will begin con- 

 struction of its branch line in the near 

 future. At the same time Congress 

 busy with the project of making the 

 Columbia navigable. There are also a 

 number of smaller railroad-building 

 projects, which, if carried out, will 

 provide transportation for mosl of the 

 river between the junction of the Ket- 

 tle River and the Pend d'Oreille. above 

 which there are now railroad line-. 

 I'.etween Kettle Falls and Wenatch< -.- 

 there is river-boat service. 



Based on what is being done at We 

 natchee. Yakima, Prosser and Spokane 

 Valleys, where the most intelligent hor- 

 ticulture is followed, it is estim: 

 that a five-year-old tree should aver- 

 age twelve boxes of apples every year. 

 These should sell at from Si to $2. 

 There are from fifty-four to eighty 

 tree-, to the acre, so the yield of an or- 

 chard should be from $ 1.200 to $2,500 

 an acre. Of course, this is done only 

 when the most modern methods are 

 employed, both as t , growing the crop 

 and marketing it. 



Reclamation Work for Socialist Settlement 



Till'. Adrian Irrigation ('ompany. 

 mded by lames J. Hill, nine 

 years ago, and abandoned after a large 

 expenditure of money, lias been resur- 

 rected by S]x>kane people, beaded by 

 11. Ro-en/\\eig. pre-ident : J. 1 .ich- 

 ty. secretary and manager, and O. L. 

 Waller, acting pre-ident of the Wa-h- 

 ton State College, chief engin 



