THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



of stopping the trouble. The ex-soldier remarked that 

 he could end the epidemic at once if given a free hand, 

 and the farmer told him to go ahead. Late one after- 

 noon when the owner was returning from town he no- 

 ticed a huge bonfire where his pig pens had stood. On 

 his arrival he found that the old soldier had built new 

 pens and shelters in a different portion of the field and 

 that all the old shelters, feed troughs and pens were 

 rapidly going up in smoke. Needless to say, the epi- 

 demic that had so devastated the herd was immediately 

 stopped. Pea-fed hogs bring a better price than corn- 

 fed swine, the price for live stock last season bring- 

 ing an average of thirty cents more per cwt. at Monte 

 Vista than did the corn-fed article at Chicago. 



Last year 350,000 lambs were fattened in the San 

 Luis valley, while some 40,000 hogs were shipped, prac- 

 tically the whole output going to the Pacific coast. This 

 may seem to be a great distance to ship live stock and 

 the loss from shrinkage would appear to a reader who 

 deals in live stock to be great. But it is a remarkable 

 fact that the shrinkage in pea-fed stock is less than half 

 what it is on other stock. Sheep, of course, are easier 

 to transport to the railroad than are hogs, which must 

 be hauled by wagon, and so the hog industry must be 

 limited to within a radius of a few miles from shipping 

 points. Sheep can be driven a reasonable distance with- 

 out much shrinkage. This season (1907-1908) there 

 will be about 300,000 lambs fattened in the valley and 

 a conservative estimate places the number of hogs at 

 between 80,000 and 100,000. These figures do not sig- 

 nify that the farmers generally are turning from lambs 

 to hogs. The chief reasons for the decrease in the num- 

 ber of lambs are the high prices asked by the breeders 

 who summer pasture the animals and the fact that the 

 farmers were unable to obtain loans from banks to pur- 

 chase because of the stringency of the money market. 

 Most of the hogs were bred in the valley, so that the 

 recent flurry does not affect the holders of this kind of 

 stock. 



You may ask what this field pea is. It is a small, 

 round pea, very similar to the common garden pea. The 

 vines grow long, often measuring seven feet, and when 

 in the prime of their growth standing higher than a 

 person's head. The ease of producing them is really 

 remarkable and rather tends to make the farmer indo- 

 lent and shiftless. They are drilled thinly into the 

 ground in the -spring of the year and then kept moist 

 by irrigation until blossoming time, after which they re- 

 quire no other attention. The total cost of production 

 of an acre that is, seeding and irrigating never ex- 

 ceeds $3.00, and I believe $1.50 is a fair average. Gen- 

 erally, the farmer drills in with his peas some kind of 

 grain, perferably oats or barley. This is done for the 

 purpose of keeping the vines off the ground when they 

 are young and giving them an opportunity of reaching 

 their full growth. I have heard enthusiastic real estate 

 dealers tell prospective land buyers that the wild sun- 

 flower, which is the most common noxious weeds in the 

 valley, was planted for this same purpose of keeping 

 pea vines from the ground and that it made as excellent 

 a food as did the pea itself. I do not vouch for the 

 veracity of the statement, but I have seen sheep eating 

 the sunflowers in preference to the pea vines. 



Often a farmer will be found who does not take the 

 trouble of plowing up his grain field, but simply drills 

 his peas into it. Apparently this method raises as 

 food a crop as a plowed field. 



THE PAYETTE VALLEY IN IDAHO, 



With Data Concerning Its Development, the Causes and 

 Future Prospects. 



[SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.] 



The achievements of the people of the Payette Val- 

 ley during the past seven or eight years are now historic 

 facts, many of which exemplify the adage that "truth is 

 stranger than fiction." 



The purchase of the largest irrigation canal in the 

 valley in 1900 by a handful of farmers, without capital, 

 and dependent upon their crops for a living, and the 

 subsequent building of a larger canal by their own 

 labor, marked the beginning of a transition from fron- 

 tier hardships and disadvantages so often found in a 

 newly settled district, to the most favored condition 

 as it appears today in the state of Idaho. 



The old Payette Valley Irrigation and Water Com- 

 pany's canal which cost the original owners more than 

 $400,000 was purchased from the New York bond 

 holders, then in control, and under the leadership of 

 C. E. Brainard, of Payette, who is now, by the way, 

 the largest land owner in the valley, was reorganized 

 into a Farmers Co-operative Irrigation Company, under 

 which title it is still to be operated by the Farmers of 

 the valley. The fact, that these same farmers have, 

 during the past seven years, spent more than $75,000 

 for improvements and enlargement of this canal, aside 

 from the regular operating expenses of about an equal 

 amount, and that they now own this valuable property 

 with a bonded indebtedness of less than $100,000, rivals 

 the story of the seven prosperous years in Egypt in 

 the time of Joseph. 



The other principal canal on the south side of 

 the Payette river, known as the Noble Ditch, was 

 completed about seven years' ago, under the leader- 

 ship of B. F. Bartch and other prominent farmers, 

 assisted in a financial ivay by W. A. Goughanour. the 

 present mayor of Payette, and others thus adding an- 

 other $100,000 asset to the farms in the vicinity of 

 New Plymouth with an indebtedness at the present 

 time of less than $10,000. 



These canals on the south side of the Payette, with 

 the lower Payette Ditch on the north side, including its 

 two extensions reaching nearly to Weiser, are the veins 

 through wh'ich the life of the valley pulsates. 



The marvelous development in so short a time 

 of the sagebrush deserts between Payette and New 

 Plymouth, and the even higher state of cultivation at- 

 tained in the older settled district north of Payette, 

 along the Snake river, is the wonder and admiration of 

 all beholders. The business men of Portland, who 

 recently spent an hour in making a short side trip on 

 the Payette Valley railroad to the new townsite of 

 Fruitland, six miles out from Payette, expressed them- 

 selves as having witnessed a revelation and the financial 

 standing of every merchant in the valley was at once 

 greatly enhanced by presenting evidences of the present 

 and future resources of the valley before so strong a 

 body of men. It would indeed be a difficult task for the 

 most celebrated landscape painter to portray on canvas 

 a picture that would, in any sense, compare with that 

 now being sketched by the farmers and fruit growers 

 of the Payette Valley. One of the journalists of Port- 

 land, in addressing the Commercial Club of Payette, 

 after returning from the excursion up the valley, re- 



