THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



213 



Moved to Chicago. 



Arrangements have been made for the removal of the 

 cement testing laboratory of the Reclamation Service at 

 Denver, Colo., to Chicago, 111., where it will be installed in 

 quarters provided through the courtesy of the Armour In- 

 stitute of Technology. 



The work carried on by the laboratory consists princi- 

 pally of acceptance tests of the cement purchased for use 

 on the construction work of various projects of the Recla- 

 mation Service and of the supervision of the shipment of this 

 cement from the factories after the tests for acceptance 

 have been made. 



The field covered by this work includes all of the projects 

 of the Service, with the exception of those situated in the 

 Pacific Coast States, for which the supply of cement is 

 obtained from plants in California and tests of which are 

 made at the laboratory of the engineer of Soils at Berkeley, 

 Cal., and also of the Salt River project in Arizona, at which 

 point the Service has a cement plant of its own for making 

 the cement required on the project. 



The specifications under which the cement is purchased 

 conform in general to the standard specifications of the 

 American Society for Testing Materials and the methods em- 

 ployed in the laboratory for making the tests are in general 

 those recommended by the Committee on Uniform Tests of 

 Cement of the American Society of Civil Engineers which 

 rules are included as a part of the above named standard 

 specifications. 



In addition to the regular tests for the acceptance of 

 material which constitutes the routine work of the laboratory, 

 such experimental work has been carried on, such as tests of 

 sand-cement and tests of sand and stone for concrete ma- 

 terials on various projects. The laboratory is also equipped 

 with an outfit for making tests of the permeability of cement 

 mortar under water pressure. It may be noted also that, in 

 addition to the regular tests for tensile strength made in 

 the laboratory, occasional sets of long time tests are made 

 on each branch of cement tested, these sets being for various 

 periods running up to ten years, and there are now over 

 3,000 briquettes in storage for these long time tests. 



The headquarters of this laboratory have been at Denver, 

 Colo., since its establishment in 1904, but as a large portion 

 of the cement is now being obatined from the plant of the 

 Illinois Steel Company at Chicago, its removal to Chicago 

 has been found desirable and acceptance has been of quarters 

 which the Armour Institute of Technology has offered to 

 provide for it. As has just been mentioned, the plant at 

 Chicago is now supplying a large portion of the cement being 

 used by the Service, but other plants from which cement is 

 being obtained, or has been obtained during the past year, are 

 those located at Salt Lake City, Utah ; Portland, Colo. ; Yank- 

 ton, S. D. ; and lola and Independence, Kas. ; and, in this con- 

 nection, it may be of interest to note that the laboratory 

 contains a collection of samples from these various plants 

 showing the raw material used and also the same in the 

 various stages of manufacture down to the finished product. 



ORLAND PROJECT. 



The Secretary of the Interior some time ago made a con- 

 ditional allotment of $650,000 for the Orland irrigation project 

 in the Sacramento Valley, and it now rests with the land 

 owners in the vicinity of Orland as to whether the Reclama- 

 tion Service will have an opportunity to prove to the people 

 of the Sacramento Valley what Government irrigation is 

 capable of doing for that valley. Everyone knows that a 

 large number of the land owners in that valley consider wheat 

 raising good enough, and that means that it takes from one 

 section of land up to maintain a family. 



With the examples of the success of irrigation in many 

 parts of the valley before them the people are gradually 

 awakening to the fact that the cultivation of large areas in 

 wheat is not calculated to bring financial returns commensu- 

 rate with the labor and capital invested. The big ranchman 

 more than any one factor has retarded the proper develop- 

 ment of the state of California, and progress will continue to 

 be slow until the large land owner can be brought to see 

 the possibilities of intensive cultivation under irrigation. 



The people in the vicinity of Orland have shown a re- 

 markable spirit of progressiveness in organizing a water 

 users' association entirely upon their own initiative, and in 

 urging upon the Government through their Washington rep- 



resentatives the consideration of a reclamation project in the 

 vicinity of their town. By energetic action they have suc- 

 ceeded in proving to the Reclamation Service the possibility 

 that land owners might consent to the necessary subdivision 

 of their land; that the owners of present small canals are 

 likely to agree to an amicable settlement of water disputes 

 by the disposal of their properties at a reasonable price, 

 and that lands that may be required for reservoir purposes 

 will be obtainable at fair figures. The Orland people have 

 been able to induce the Secretary of the Interior to make 

 an allotment from the reclamation fund for the construction 

 of an Orland project, conditioned upon the above matters 

 being actually done, and it is gratifying to everyone in the 

 valley to observe the intelligent and ambitious manner in 

 which the people are going about these things. 



When the conditions imposed by the Secretary of the 

 Interior shall have been complied with, and when the con- 

 ditional allotment shall have been made definite, the final 

 plans of the necessary work will be promptly prepared by the 

 Reclamation Service, after which construction can commence. 



The area of the project probably will be slightly in ex- 

 cess of 10,000 acres. As compared with the irrigable area 

 of the Sacramento Valley it represents less than one per cent. 

 It cannot therefore seriously affect the physical conditions 

 throughout the valley. When, however, these ten thousand 

 acres now producing a small amount of wheat shall become 

 highly productive, when oranges and lemons and walnuts and 

 almonds are being shipped from this small area by the hun- 

 dreds of car loads, when the land shall have increased in 

 value from less than $10 to many hundreds of dollars per 

 acre, then it is hoped that other parts of the valley will de- 

 sire to be similarly improved, and that the large land owners 

 will consider it to their benefit to encourage similar work 

 elsewhere. 



The immense possibilities of the valley will then be- 

 come more and more apparent, and the various interests will 

 come to realize that the success of one will assist the suc- 

 cess of the other. If it can then be shown that the diffi- 

 culties in protecting the low lands on the Sacramento River 

 may be helped by the construction of reservoirs for the irri- 

 gation of the high lands; that navigation can be better pro- 

 vided for than at present with a less wasteful use of the 

 summer flow of the Sacramento River, and that there are 

 ways in which the mining industry can be carried on with- 

 out detriment to agriculture. With a better understanding of 

 these facts the people of the valley will insist upon attacking 

 the problems of general improvement on the vast and far- 

 reaching scale which it deserves, and henceforth progress will 

 follow in broad lines and with constantly accumulating re- 

 sults. 



With the progressiveness and ambition of the Western 

 people it need not be more than a generation to see a mar- 

 velous change in conditions, and the work in connection with 

 the Orland project will derive its highest importance and 

 value from having given impetus to the full development of 

 the potentialities of this great valley. 



ENGINEER D. C. HENNY TALKS. 



Mr. D. C. Henny of the Reclamation Service, supervising 

 engineer for Washington, Oregon, and the major portion of 

 California, who has been in the Washington office a few 

 days, said last night : 



"Construction on the Okanogan irrigation project, Wash- 

 ington, js proceeding at a very favorable rate. Storage for 

 the project will be obtained by rebuilding and raising the out- 

 let works on the Salmon Lake reservoir during the late spring 

 of the current year. The inlet canal has already been con- 

 structed. The principal storage will be obtained in Concon- 

 nully basin reservoir by the construction of an earth dam 82 

 feet high. No satisfactory bids have been obtained on this 

 work, and for that reason the Government has purchased 

 and shipped in all the equipment necessary to build this dam 

 by forces directly engaged by it, and preparatory work has 

 already been commenced. 



"The work is interesting not only in that the dam is a 

 very high one, but also in that it must be constructed between 

 two flood periods, and it is hoped that it will be practically 

 finished before the end of this year. 



"The water from the two reservoirs, both lying close to 

 the town of Conconnully, will be released when needed for 

 irrigation, and will flow down the natural bed of Salmon 



