THE IREIGATION AGE. 



305 



A Country Without an ' 4 If ' ' 



By Mark Bennitt. 



Southern Idaho has been in the limelight for half a 

 dozen years as the seat of the greatest irrigation work 

 of modern times, or of any other times, however remote. 



The T-win Falls region has blazed out in the sky of 

 western progress like a comet, brilliant, scintillating and 

 interesting because of its novelty and the bumptious spirit 

 which it manifests. 



The Twin Falls country is a country without an "if." 

 There is no negative quality. Nobody is hanging back. 

 Everybody is in harness and pulling some of the load, if 

 load it may be called when a whole population is fired by 

 enthusiasm and stirred with a purpose to build a great 

 new social structure with irrigation as its foundation. 



"What are the adverse conditions?" is a frequent 



question. There aren't any to the man who knows Idaho. 



The sun shines, the waters flow, the seeds germinate, the 



. trees put forth their blossoms, leaves and fruit. "Ifs" 



and a broad and liberal policy on the part of organized 

 capital. The means to construct the costly and extensive 

 irrigating systems there to be found have been forth- 

 coming without delay, without hesitation. Never has there 

 been a hitch since these great systems were begun. The 

 money has been ready for every feature of the work. 

 Nothing but adverse weather or physical conditions tem- 

 porarily insurmountable have delayed the progress of con- 

 struction since the day it was started. 



The crowning work on the Twin Falls North Side 

 canal system has been done during one of the severest 

 winters ever encountered in the Northwest. Water was 

 delivered for irrigation for the first time last season. 

 Every canal was newly made and the seasoning and set- 

 tling process had to be gone through with. The earth 

 was almost as dry as if it had been run through a calcin- 

 ing oven. It drank up the waters as though its capacity 

 were beyond its bulk. The season's trial determined the 

 irrigating company to spend another half million, if neces- 

 sary, to make the Twin Falls North Side canal system 

 one of the most perfect in the world. This is the task 

 that has been done during the last winter. 



The accompanying illustrations show a part of the 

 winter's work, namely, the cemented portion of the main 

 North Side canal. From the great dam at Milner, which 

 raises the water of the Snake river nearly 50 feet above 



Main irrigation canal, Twin Falls North Side tract, showing treatment of canal banks through earth cut. 



were not made for the Twin Falls country. It is a region 

 of positives. It is a country bouyant with a hope that is 

 justified and expectations that are certain of realization. 



A new school of engineers has come into existence 

 with irrigation development. The one has developed the 

 other, and they are a happy combination the man who 

 knows how to do things and the material with which to 

 do them. We must not forget the promoter and the capi- 

 talist. It is one of the facts of finance that capital waits 

 for the promoter, the man with far-reaching and prophetic 

 vision, the man of imagination who sees clearly the fin- 

 ished accomplishment. As the architect discerns in his 

 imagination the beauty and enduring form of a great build- 

 ing before he has ever put it on paper, so the promoter 

 sees the finished railroad with new and prosperous towns 

 along its right-of-way, or he sees a desert transformed 

 into a country dotted with homes and towns and produc- 

 ing food for a million people, all the result of the con- 

 struction of an extensive irrigating system. The promoter 

 thinks in large figures, harmonizes capital and working 

 organization, points the way to successful investment 

 and the doing of great deeds. 



The unparalleled development of irrigations in the 

 Twin Falls country of Southern Idaho is a monument 

 alike to the unfaltering determination of the promoter 



the low water level, this canal is lined with a smooth 

 surface of concrete for nearly two miles. To do this 

 work, extensive preparations were necessary. The assem- 

 bling of men and material was alone a large task. To 

 shut off the water from the canals in summer would have 

 brought great loss to settlers and a liability which the 

 irrigating company would not willingly incur, although 

 the work would have cost far less during the summer 

 season. 



Persons unfamiliar with Southern Idaho do not realize 

 the extreme aridity of that part of the country. In the 

 government reports it is classed as a region where the 

 total annual rainfall is less than 10 inches, and where the 

 sun shines more than 300 days in the year. Water is an 

 absolute necessity for agriculture, although the region 

 has been a favorite grazing country for many years. But 

 thanks to the Snake river, one of the great streams of 

 America, millions of acres are being made more valuable 

 than Mississippi bottom lands for agriculture and horti- 

 culture. A single season without water for irrigation would 

 have meant serious loss to those already settled upon the 

 new farms. Hence the decision to do this giant's task 

 during the winter months. Adverse and unusually severe 

 weather brought one problem after another, but the most 

 serious was the freezing of the new concrete lining almost 



