300 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



for it permeates every walk of life that one is pre- 

 disposed to invoke a thank offering from the lines of 

 the poet: 



"Grateful and lovely, thro' the leafy glade, 



When day is at its sultriest, heaviest heat, 

 When birds scarce twitter in the noontide shade, 



And the slow kine seek out some cool retreat, 

 Comes the rich Mother of the harvest sheaves, 



Bearing her first-fruits on her ample breast; 

 Speared barley, wheat and grapes in tinted leaves, 



To lay them on God's altar, ripe and blest 

 Thank-offering to the Bountiful, Who gives 



The fertile sunshine and the soft'ning rain,- 

 The Father, Lord, of everything that lives, 



Without Whose blessing man would sow in vain. 

 Look up, Mother ! holy are thy tears, 

 And sweet thy hymn of praise in heavenly ears." 



instruments there are the slow puffs of the locomotives 

 in unison and then alternately going up steep grades 

 and around sharp curves, followed by the quick puffs 

 descending the grade on the other side; the winding 

 rivers that thread their way through seemingly endless 

 stretches of prairie, resembling majestic ribbons of steel 

 where they cut through the Rocky Mountains the 

 lonely houses, treeless regions, the rumble of the train 

 in tunnels and most beautiful and picturesque per- 

 haps of all is the reverberating echo of the locomotive 

 whistle among the pine-clad canyons, the sound repeat- 

 ing itself ten or fifteen times until it is lost in the dis- 

 tance; and the dancing surf of the Pacific would be an 

 appropriate finale. 



Every transcontinental train is a unit of civiliza- 

 tion in itself. The train is made up of about twelve 

 coaches and from two to three engines large ones 



Harvesting Alfalfa in Colorado Denver & Rio Grande Railway. 



People in Spokane are getting rich rapidly. Hustle 

 and bustle are noticeable on every hand. The irrigated 

 West is being given an uplift that is causing nearly 

 everybody to sit up and take notice and irrigation is 

 doing the boosting. 



From Livingston to Trout Creek a distance of 

 some 500 miles we rode among the Rocky Mountains, 

 where, towering away to cloud-land, stand mighty 

 adamantine sentinels. Upon these gigantic slabs of 

 rock the poet calls them "the gods' pallet" are mixed 

 the paints that color the rainbow, tint the cloud pic- 

 tures with which the early evening sky is hung, give the 

 bright green to earth's carpet, the deep blue to heaven's 

 canopy, and the silvery sheen to the far away stars. 



From New York to Seattle is a grand symphony. 

 It seems strange to me that Sousa has never composed 

 the march "Across the Continent." It is a theme with 

 limitless possibilities. First we have the rolling up- 

 lands of the Atlantic States, then the gentle undulations 

 of the Allegheny hills, followed by nearly 2,000 miles 

 of level prairie, extending through Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 

 nois, Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas. Here the 

 staccato begins with now and then a rugged hill lifting 

 its head above the vast sweep of magnificent distances, 

 while a range of blue hills can be seen encircling the 

 far-away horizon. The Rocky Mountains form the 

 crescendo movement and what a crash of heavy brass 

 and sounding cymbals could be thrown in here ! The 

 reed instruments could portray the herds of cattle and 

 sheep feeding on the lower hills, the unfamiliar flowers 

 and the murmur of the mountain streams. For other 



moguls. It lives, moves and has its being chiefly 

 moves regardless of what the remainder of the world 

 is doing, except the other trains moving over the same 

 road. Aboard the train every conceivable subject is 

 discussed pro and con. Engineers map out irrigating 

 projects; telegrams and letters are dictated to stenog- 

 raphers written on typewriters and sent to every part 

 of the known world; we ; ghty governmental problems 

 are worked out; officers of foreign powers study our 

 resources and strength ; our own officers move from one 

 army post to another; the Russo-Japanese campaign is 

 fought over again in every detail from the battle of 

 Yalu to the Portsmouth conference in brief, the men 

 who travel on the transcontinental trains are in the 

 main men who do things. 



Among the distinguished guests aboard our train 

 were Major Cheveer, U. S. A., a brilliant and dashing 

 cavalry officer, who has seen much service on the 

 frontier, in Cuba and the Philippines; F. W. Gilbert, 

 general superintendent of the Northern Pacific Railway 

 Company, who was accompanied by his private secretary 

 and worked unremittingly throughout the whole jour- 

 ney; E. E. Dildine, assistant superintendent of tele- 

 graphs for the Northern Pacific Railway Company; 

 C. A. Alther, capitalist, Minneapolis, Minn.; A. C. 

 Lewis, representing Woodcraft of Cincinnati; M. M. 

 Baker, capitalist, Chicago, and Lieutenant-Colonel San- 

 horn, of the British Army, who led a regiment of 

 dragoons against the Boers in the South African cam- 

 paign. We were a merry little band, and the name of 

 our car was "Mandan." 



