IRRIGATION FARMING 235 



veys were inaugurated by the Government to determine 

 the feasibility of diverting water from some of the 

 mountain streams for irrigating a portion of the prairie 

 land of southern Alberta. The first project of any 

 magnitude was built by the Canadian North West Irri- 

 gation Company, now owned and operated by the Can- 



Fig. 82. — Float LeveUlng Land for the Border System of Irrigation. 



adian Pacific Railway Company, in the vicinity of Leth- 

 bridge where approximately 130,000 acres of land have 

 been brought "under the ditch". Water was first carried 

 by this ditch in the fall of 1900. Five or six years later 

 the Canadian Pacific Railway Company inaugurated an 

 irrigation project east of Calgary, diverting water from 

 the Bow River, to irrigate, approximately, 880,000 acres 

 in their block of 3,000,000 acres of land extending from 

 west of Strathmore to east of Brooks. 



Previous to this time there were a number of small 

 projects taken out by private individuals, the greater 

 number of these being in the southwestern part of Sas- 



