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THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



sons principally the apathy of the older districts did not 

 always bring the desired results, and many of the sections 

 interested sought to "carry the war into Africa" by plac- 

 ing exhibits at various expositions held in the east. 



Difficulties of management and the injustice of con- 

 tributing to the profits of privately managed exhibitions 

 caused much dissatisfaction here also, and gave rise to 

 organized protest on one occasion. 



The movement which had its origin at Chicago last 

 December crystallized into definite proportions at Salt 

 Lake City on April 4th, and a permanent organization was 

 effected whose object is to carry on the propaganda in the 

 east vigorously, and free form entangling alliances with 

 private interests, and to this end has wisely declared its 

 intention of co-operating in the matter of education and 

 exhibition with the "National Farm Land Congress." 



Delegates to the Exposition Association, as well as 

 Messrs. Farnsworth and Walsh, of the Farm Land Con- 

 gress, are to be congratulated upon this happy union of 

 effort. The AGE has consistently advocated this course 

 and has reason to feel well pleased with the issue. 



EIGHTEENTH IRRIGATION CONGRESS. 



PENROSE, COLORADO. 



(Correspondence.) 



A year ago the writer came to Penrose, Colo., which 

 was mostly mesa then. A leading irrigationist had called 

 attention to the fact that the Beaver Land and Irrigation 

 Company's project located around Penrose was con- 

 structed on ideal lines for the conservation of water. 



That project is now about completed and the town of 

 Penrose is growing literally by leaps and bounds. Three 

 brick business blocks are now completed, large general 

 store, two lumber yards, and every line of business that 

 goes to make a good live town is now represented. 



This community is located thirteen miles from Canon 

 City, the great fruit district of the Arkansas Valley. Fruit 

 lands that are worth $1,000 an acre can still be bought at 

 Penrose at $125 to $200 an acre. 



The most distinctive feature of the Beaver Land and 

 Irrigation Company's property is the fact that all the 

 waters are conserved. From the immense dam and reser- 

 voir nine miles away, draining 130 square miles of area 

 on the southwest slope of Pike's Peak, the water is con- 

 ducted, not through open ditches, but through concrete 

 pipes to every ten-acre tract. There is, therefore, no loss 

 by seepage or evaporation. 



This will be one of the novel and unusual sights that 



will be seen by the visitors to the Irrigation Congress in 



Pueblo, Sept. 26-30. Pueblo is located twenty miles east. 



Fruit trees are now about two years old at Penrose. 



Cherry trees will bear this year. 



The Santa Fe Trail runners made a special stop on 

 their Kansas-Colorado run, April 21, to hj8k at one of the 

 newest of the bright, promising irrigation towns of the 

 Valley of Content. 



FOUNTAIN COLORADO PROJECT. 



Word has reached us that the work of enlarging the 

 Fountain canal, which supplies a large area of land in the 

 Fountain Valley, Colorado, has been completed and all land 

 owners will secure sufficient water this season. New laterals 

 have been constructed and water is now being delivered to 

 tracts where trees are being planted. The superintendent of 

 the IRRIGATION AGE ranch informs us that he has prepared 

 the ground and planted 500 cherry, 30 apple, 10 peach and 10 

 plum trees. He is preparing to set out 1,000 dewberry plants. 



Mr. W. C. Johnston, president of the Fountain Land 

 Irrigation Company, who visited Chicago recently, stated that 

 the reservoirs are all full and that much work has been done 

 in the way of improving the entire project. 



By R. H. Faxon, Director of Publicity. 



It is a peculiarly appropriate and equally significant 

 fact that the Eighteenth National Irrigation Congress, 

 Pueblo, September 26-30, 1910, will be held in the city 

 named for the tribe of Indians that first practiced the 

 ancient art of irrigation in this country the Pueblo tribe. 



These Indians inhabited portions of what are now the 

 territories of New Mexico and Arizona, as well as South- 

 ern Colorado. Their descendants were still cultivating 

 the land and practicing irrigation when the Spanish came 

 to these parts centuries ago, with the sword in the one 

 hand and the cross in the other. Traces of the work 

 of this tribe are still to be found in the great southwest, 

 and the marvel of modern engineering is the precision 

 with which they constructed their ditches and their works. 



The Mormons, in Utah, were the first English-speak- 

 ing people to entertain the practice of irrigation in any- 

 thing like a systematic manner in the West, and their 

 successes are a matter of history. Southern California 

 was the next English-speaking section of the West to put 

 water on the land, and it partly grew from the labors of 

 the placer miners, who utilized the water with which they 

 washed their ore to grow crops upon the lands. 



Colorado, in its northern section, was one of the first 

 portions of the west to lend its attention to this ancient 

 art, and its success has been marked. Every problem in 

 irrigation and there are many has been solved in the 

 Fort Morgan, Fort Collins, Boulder and Greeley districts 

 and on the North Platte and Cache la Poudre. 



It has been estimated that there are 40,000,000 acres 

 in the west susceptible of irrigation, of which the twenty- 

 five government projects now complete or in process oi 

 construction will comprise more than 3,000,000 acres. 

 Private projects have already taken care of more than 

 10,000,000 acres, and other private projects, now in con 

 templation or under way, will have an additional acreage 

 of 5,000,000. Added to this must be enumerated pro- 

 posed government projects, thirteen in all, ready for funds 

 to construct them, having an acreage of 3,250,000, 



There are many private projects in the country of 

 enormous proportions, but the largest actually under 

 way is the DeWeese project at Pueblo, which will take 

 care of 300,000 acres, and on which work is now begin- 

 ning. There is a chain of related projects on the Snake 

 River in Idaho of larger acreage, but not a single project 

 like the DeWeese at Pueblo; and another of large acre- 

 age, the Horseheaven in Washington, which is now being 

 organized, will plan to put 600,000 acres under water. 

 Projects promoted by private capital and having 100,000 

 acres are by no means unusual, and two of these are in 

 the Pueblo country. 



One of the most gratifying things of the year, and a 

 result that may be directly traced to the influence of the 

 National Irrigation Congress, is the act of Congress ap- 

 proved February 25, 1910, amending the census act in 

 several particulars, but more especially providing for a 

 complete census of private irrigation projects. This con- 

 templates the acreage, the crops, the capital invested, and 

 will furnish accurate 'and official figures for the benefit of 

 not only irrigationists and agriculturists, but engineers, 

 capitalists and publicity experts. This inquiry will be 

 made a portion of the regular census taken, to begin 

 April 15. The unusual effort put forth by the friends of 

 the Eighteenth National Irrigation Congress and its offi- 

 cials is directly responsible for this marked progress and 

 result. 



An irrigation publicist has recently figured, in a care- 

 ful and conservative way, that a census today would show 

 fully 250,000 farms in the United States under ditches, 

 watering more than 15.000,000 acres of lands. The state 

 of Colorado, within which the Eighteenth Congress will 

 be held September 26-30 next, leads all other states, hav- 

 ing 3,500,000 acres under water and 20,000 miles of canals 

 and laterals. California has the largest number of irri- 

 gators, while the state of Washington has the greatest 

 percentage in the number of irrigators. 



* Send $2.50 for the Irrigation Age 1 year, and 

 .;. cloth bound copy of the Primer of Irrigation 



A. 



