76 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



tion of about thirty-seven miles of main distributing 

 canals for the diversion of eighteen cubic feet of water 

 a second from Carson River at a point about four miles 

 west of Lectville, Nev. This work involves about 

 1,500,000 cubic yards of earthwork besides the concrete 

 diverting dam, the regulating gates, spillways, falls 

 and weirs. The system will distribute water to mains 

 in the Carson Sink Valley and will be supplied by the 

 Lower Carson reservoir." 



The Carson River, like Tahoe, has its source in 

 Carson Lake in the high Sierra, and it is to supple- 

 ment the flow of this more limited stream that the 

 waters of Truckee are diverted from Pyramid Lake to 

 the Carson basin. This great work now supplies water 

 to some 50,000 acres of land and when completed will 

 thoroughly reclaim more than 200,000 acres in Churchill 

 County at a cost of less than $3,000,000. Altogether 

 the successful carrying out of the Truckee-Carson proj- 

 ect means, as stated by Mr. Taylor in Progressive West, 

 the addition of from 350,000 to 400,000 acres to the 

 agricultural area of the State of Nevada-. This area 

 will be divided into comparatively small farms and un- 

 der intensive culture, which must of necessity follow 

 irrigation, it will support a very large population. The 

 writer hesitates an estimate of the number of souls 

 it will sustain, but knows he is entirely conservative in 

 placing it at a minimum of 60,000. This, of course, 

 includes, besides the people directly on the land, those 



canal from that point to the Carson Sink having been 

 constructed and the water turned in, the attention of 

 the Reclamation Service is now being directed to the 



Onion Fields Near Greeley, Colo., on Union Pacific Railway. 



construction of the necessary laterals from the main 

 canal penetrating the lands they are to supply and 

 to the storage reseroirs of the Carson River that is to 

 add so much to the water supply. The map shows the 

 location of the lower Carson reservoir, which will have 

 a capacity of over 280,000 acre feet. Three other reser- 

 voirs will be constructed in the Carson Basin, adding 



Looking West Up Truckee Canal from Top of Tunnel. 



in the towns and villages that will spring up in the 

 district. A glance at the neighboring State of Utah, 

 by far more than half of whose nearly half a million 

 population are sustained by less than half a million 

 acres of land cultivated by irrigation, will convince the 

 most skeptical that this estimate is thoroughly on the 

 side of sarfety." 



The diverting dam of the Truckee and the main 



250,000 acre feet more. The storage capacity of Lake 

 Tahoe is estimated at 200,000 acre feet and six other 

 reservoirs in the upper Truckee basin will have 90,000 

 acre feet more. Leaving out the Walker Lake basin 

 an aggregate storage of 820,000 acre feet is provided 

 for over and above the natural summer flow of the 

 streams. 



This great work, with its numerous novel features, 



