f , 



fn 



1 ' 



FORESTS 

 WATERS 



SOILS 

 MINERALS 



iitirtifii- 



Vol. XV 



JULY, 1909 



Xo. 7 



IRRIGATION IN THE INLAND EMPIRE 



IRRIGATIOX by Government proj- 

 ects covering more than 2.000.000 



acres of lands in the West, and by 

 private projects covering some n.- 

 ooo.ooo ; possibilities under intensive 

 cultivation and the advantag- -- ''f com- 

 munity life in localities where orchard-, 

 fields, and gardens are watered by artifi- 

 cial means, and problems of forestry, 

 deep waterway-, reclamation of swamp 

 lands, good roads, conservation of re- 

 -ources and home-building, all will be 

 brought prominently to the fore during 

 the seventeenth sessions of the Xational 

 Irrigation Congress. This meeting will 

 be held in Spokane, August 9 to 14. when 

 between 4.000 and 5.000 accredited del- 

 egates and representative business men 

 "t~ the United States and Canada. Eu- 

 rope, the Latin republics. China, and 

 Japan will meet under the presidency 

 of George Eames Ilarstow of Texas. 



The board of control, through its ex- 

 ecutive committee, headed by R. In- 

 singer. is arranging a comprehensive 

 program, including addresses by states- 

 men, scientists, bankers, and experts in 

 their various lines of endeavor, and dis- 

 cu^-ions by delegate-. In addition. 



there will be demonstrations by officials 

 of the United States Reclamation Serv- 

 ice of the scientific application of moist- 

 ure. These will take place in the state 

 armory, where the congress meet-. 



There will also be parades of prog- 

 5S, -bowing the development <>f the 

 Xorthwest. and a march in review by 

 the industrial and irrigation arm} 

 lo.ooo men. representing the variou- 

 districts in which intensified farming i- 

 practised. The thoroughfares and 

 buildings in the city will be decorated 

 and illuminated by myriads of electric 

 lights, and there will be massed exhibits 

 of the re-ource- of the country, the un- 

 furling of the color- of the nation-, 

 patriotic air- by ma--e<1 bands, the sing- 

 ing of the irrigation ode by a large 

 chorus of trained singers and rendi- 

 tions of national and state hymns by 

 school children. 



Though there are now approximately 

 200 private irrigation projects in what 

 is called the Inland Empire, embracing 

 [50,000 -miare miles of territory in 

 ea-tern Washington, northern Idaho, 

 we-tern Montana, northeastern Oregon- 

 and southeastern British Columbia, and 



385 



