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THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ANNUAL HOUSECLEANING. 



The annual house cleaning of the Geological survey has 

 just been completed, and there has been a readjustment 

 of salaries and positions resulting from changes made by 

 Congress in the appropriations. Some items have been re- 

 duced, while others have been increased. It has long been 

 the policy of the survey to periodically readjust salaries at 

 such times, and to cut out as effectively as possible the dead 

 wood or ineffective material. 



The Geological Survey is one of the bureaus of the 

 government in which there are very few fixed salaries and 

 where promotions or changes are considered by a board, or 

 series of boards seeking annually to readjust on the basis of 

 ability shown. It is, of course, easy to recommend the 

 advancement of one man or another, but the most difficult. 

 and at the same time necessary work of the director is 

 that of cutting down from time to time the pay of men 

 who, because of one reason or another have shown dimin- 

 ished activity, or who are accomplishing less results than 

 their associates. There are always a few persons who, 

 through advancing age, sickness, or other infirmities, gradu- 

 ally drop out, and in the interest of good administration as 

 well as equity, the director must study how to reduce the 

 pay in accordance with the work performed. This is not 

 only difficult, but frequently distressing, in that men who 

 have worked faithfully for years must be told that they are 

 no longer young, and that they can not block the way of the 

 more efficient and aggressive men those upon whom is 

 laid the responsibility of preserving a high standard of 

 effectiveness. Many of these men have been exceptionally 

 able in their youth, and in recognition of this they have 

 been retained for years at relatively high salaries. Instead 

 of letting them out entirely, it seems only fair and proper to 

 retain them at moderate pay and to permit them to continue 

 the duties which they can effectively perform, and in which 

 they will not obstruct the work of the younger men. 



In other cases men have fallen into bad habits, and 

 they are given the alternative of reforming, and sometimes 

 are put on a per diem basis, with the understanding that 

 they must each day perform more effective work than in 

 the past. A little jarring of this kind is usually very ef- 

 fective, and in a number of instances reduction of salary 

 has not only been beneficial to the organization as a whole, 

 but has stimulated the individual to increased activity and 

 has resulted in restoration to the higher grade. 



A number of instances which would be ludicrous if not 

 pathetic, have arison from the attempt of various persons 

 in other bureaus to get transferred to the Geological Survey, 

 under the belief that the work was easy and promotions 

 rapid. Some of these persons, having energy and strength, 

 have won out; others have deplored their rashness and 

 and have tried to get back to the bureau from which they 

 came, only to find the responsible heads of these bureaus, 

 who were glad to recommend them for transfer, will not now 

 take them back under any consideration, and that their only 

 recourse is to go into private employment. The maneuvers 

 of these people, when they find that they can not "make 

 good" in the Survey, and can not get back into their old 

 places, are surprising. 



A LARGE CONTRACT. 



An important contract has just been awarded by the 

 government to the D'Olier Engineering Company, of Phila- 

 delphia, Pa. This contract calls for the furnishing and instal- 

 lation, ready for operation, of an electric power plant of 450 

 kilowatt switchboard output, for pumping purposes, includ- 

 ing boilers, engines, generators, switchboards, etc., in con- 

 nection with the Garden City irrigation project, Kansas. The 

 amount of the bid was $46,300. 



The plans for reclamation in this section are unique 

 in that they contemplate the recovery of ground water in the 

 Arkansas Valley by pumping and its distribution by means 

 of an existing canal known as the Farmers' Ditch. The 

 proposed system will consist of a series of separate pumping 

 stations, each discharging into a concrete-lined flume or sur- 

 face conduit, which will carry the water to the main canal. 

 The water will be delivered into the Farmers' Ditch about one 

 mile northeast of its headgates. The entire plant is to be op- 

 erated by electricity from a central power station located 

 near the middle of the line of pumping stations. 



The bottom lands at this point are very wide and con- 



stitute an excellent catchment area for rainfall, and the 

 gravels beneath the bottom lands form an underground 

 drainage for the contributory watershed extending both north 

 and south of the river valley. There is practically no surface 

 run off from this portion of the plains. The ground is so 

 level and porous and the gravels beneath the surface so ample 

 that they act like drains in removing all of the rainfall that is 

 not appropriated by the vegetation and evaporation. The 

 entire pumping plant is designed to recover an average of 

 100 second feet of ground water for a period of 150 days, 

 which is equivalent to a total of 30,000 acre-feet for the 

 irrigation season. A portion of the water recovered will be 

 carried under the Arkansas river by a siphon 800 feet long, 

 with a capacity of 100 second-feet. 



The Farmers' Ditch covers portions of the uplands and 

 bottoms of excellent quality. The semi-arid region of 

 western Kansas requires but a small amount of water per 

 acre of irrigated land, as the natural rainfall and the quality 

 of the upland soil renders possible a very high duty of water. 

 The value of the land in this part of Kansas in its natural 

 condition is from $5 to $10 per acre. When reclaimed by 

 irrigation it is easily worth from $100 to $150 per acre. The 

 principal crops are sugar beets and alfalfa, considerable 

 quantities of which are already under cultivation. Sugar 

 beet factories are already located within easy stopping dis- 

 tance from Garden City. Back of the lands to be watered are 

 wide strips of excellent grazing lands which will grow cane 

 and forage plants without irrigation. 



There is no doubt but that the successful initiation of a 

 pumping plant will encourage private capital to take up the 

 work in other sections and will ultimately result in the devel- 

 opment of numberless pumping systems along the valleys of 

 the plains' streams. The extension of dry farming over 

 areas on higher levels will further extend the rural com- 

 munities. 



THE NORTH PLATTE PROJECT. 



The supervising engineer in charge of the North Platte 

 irrigation project, Wyoming-Nebraska, reports that on August 

 15th the foundation was ready for stone laying and the 

 first stone was set in the great Pathfinder dam. The work of 

 stone laying has continued without interruption and it is 

 expected that the entire foundation will be ready for masonry 

 by September 15th. 



The construction of this dam has for its object the 

 storage of flood water of the North Platte River, to be used 

 for the irrigation of large tracts of land in Nebraska and 

 Wyoming. It will contain 53,000 cubic yards of masonry, 

 erected at a cost of $1,000,000. The capacity of the reservoir 

 will be 43,560,000,000 cubic feet, or more than ten times that 

 of the Croton reservoir in New York. The annual discharge 

 of the river is sufficient to cover 1,000,000 acres of land one 

 foot in depth, and the dam is capable of holding back the 

 flood and surplus waters of the entire year. 



According to the last census, within the drainage basin of 

 the Platte River is found the largest area irrigated by one 

 stream in the United States, and the value of the improved 

 agricultural land is probably as high as any other section, 

 with the possible exception of the fruit belts of California and 

 central Colorado. All the natural late summer flow of the 

 stream has long since been exhausted by private ditches 

 diverting water from it. A million acre feet of water, not a 

 drop of which is now in use, will be stored annually by the 

 Pathfinder dam, and directed through canals and ditches upon 

 300,000 acres of land. The canal system will be the longest 

 in the United States, the main or Interstate Canal having a 

 length of 140 miles. The first forty-five miles of this canal 

 were completed early this spring and water turned into it on 

 May 5th. Some_ 1,200 acres of land are in crop and have 

 been watered during the season. 



The Geddis & Seerie Stone Company, of Denver, Colo.. 

 are constructing the dam. Excellent progress is being made 

 on all parts of the system. The great work not only means 

 the reclamation of a vast tract of arid land, but the prevention 

 forever of the destructive floods which annually have visited 

 the valley. 



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