THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



233 



AT THE recent exercises opening the Interstate 

 Canal, the only note of discord was the braggadocio of 

 Engineer Field. There has been rapid and good work, 

 which we commend, but the business detail has been 

 found wanting. First, two over-lapping contracts. Be- 

 ing unable to readjust this with damages because of the 

 attitude of Mr. Lingle's backers, extensive bonus ten 

 to twelve per cent increase was paid construction con- 

 tractors. Now, it appears all contractors, save one, com- 

 pleted their work in time to secure the bonus. But that 

 one holds the key to watering nineteen thousand of the 

 twenty thousand acres agreed to be supplied with water 

 this year. 



THIS means another milking, for damages. In all, 

 TVtr. Lingle has fared and will fare well. He was 

 -eighteen months ago upon the rack. He risked a final 

 plunge by telling Mr. Field that H. G. Leavitt was 

 trying to buy him out, and Field rose to the hook. 

 Since then fortune and favor have been with Lingle. 

 Today he is automobiling around the world on money 

 received from the government which water users will 

 have to pay back. 



How TO initiate reforms can anyone suggest a 

 plan that will prove best? Two years ago Thomas W. 

 Lawson heralded to the world that he had a remedy 

 for financial ills. Thousands of students have plowed 

 through mazes of financial crimes and indulged the 

 luxury of lessons in high finance. Yet because there is 

 much alleged idiocy at large his remedy is a hope de- 

 ferred, and by its delay he has emphasized the charges 

 of his enemies that he is a charlatan. 



A YEAR ago we saw the need of improved business 

 methods in the Reclamation Service. We saw a rem- 

 edy. In charity for engineers we offered the remedy as 

 relief. Dr. Newell scorned the necessity, and imme- 

 diately forthwith underground evidence ( ?) of the un- 

 desirable character, and various other personal attain- 

 ments of the scribe, found lodgment in the rogues' 

 gallery of the department. 



THUS our puzzling conjecture. The man who 

 defers the remedy long, the man who defies the money 

 mills, is a scallawag. And the man who proposes his 

 remedy at once, if it proposes improved governmental 

 efficiency, has his character and purposes secretly assas- 

 sinated, and is accused of opposing federal work. 



I 



$2.50 will secure for you one year's subscription to THE 

 IRRIGATION A(iE and a finely bound volume of the Primer 

 of Irrigation which will be gent postpaid In a few months, 

 when volume is completed. The Primer of Irrigation will be 

 finely Illustrated and will contain about 300 pages. Send post 

 office or express money order for $1.50 and secure copy of first 

 edition. 



I 



NICHOLAS SINELNIKOFF, AGRICULTURAL EN- 

 GINEER, OF RUSSIA, WRITES HIS 

 IMPRESSIONS. 



Editor IRRIGATION AGE, Chicago, III.: 



Dear Sir : In compliance with your suggestion to 

 give my impressions on America during my travels 

 across this continent, I am glad to express my opinion 

 on irrigation and, in general, works of an agricultural 

 character. 



After having studied irrigation in Europe, I pro- 

 posed to stay not over four months in the United States. 

 It is, however, nearly a year since I began investigating 

 this work here so interesting and instructive have I 

 found it. I was especially struck by the energy and 

 capacity, inherent to the Americans, to organize and 

 systematically utilize to the utmost the natural wealth 

 of the country, taking advantage of the experience 

 gleaned by humanity. It is sufficient to mention the 

 success achieved in agricultural experimental work and 



Nicholas Sinelnikoff, Agricultural Engineer. 



Special Representative in U. S. of the Agricultural Department 



of the Russian Government. 



the development of irrigation for the last decade. The 

 similarity of certain regions of Russia and of the United 

 States offers the possibility of borrowing one from the 

 other methods of culture as well as various kinds of 

 cereals and plants. Thus, for example, Russian mac- 

 aroni wheats are successfully grown in the United 

 States, as are also the Russian mulberry, several kinds 

 of fruit trees, Turkestan alfalfa, etc. In artificial sil- 

 viculture some of the American species of timber grow 

 better in the steppes of southern Russia than the same 

 kinds taken from Central Russia. The similarity of 

 conditions allows likewise the adaptation in Russia of 

 agricultural machinery of American construction. A few 

 years ago I traveled over Siberia from the River Obi 

 and the Altai Mountains to Central Asia and the Ural 

 Mountains several thousands of miles. American 

 reaping and mowing machines have already been 

 adopted even in those distant regions. They are bar- 



