THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



23 r 



hundred feet of oil bearing formation. Lack of pipe line 

 facilities has prevented it from showing its full capacity. It 

 is pumping now at the rate of two hundred and fifty barrels 

 daily and when it is opened up through the casing head 

 flows several times this amount. 



The Old Mission Oil Company is putting down a well 

 on the adjoining property, a half mile north of Palmer well 

 number one. 



A mile north of the Palmer oil field, a new company, 

 known as the Ideal Oil Company, has just spudded in, in 

 the same easterly field. 



The Sisquoc Oil Company is about three miles east of 

 the Ideal and is down several hundred feet exploiting the 

 more northerly part of the eastern field. 



The Foxen Company is several miles farther east, near 

 Foxen Canyon, on the land of G. Muscio. They have passed 

 the twenty-two hundred foot depth and are in the shale 

 formation. 



Santa Maria has an active Chamber of Commerce whose 

 members are all more or less interested in the oil develop- 

 ment. Following is a list of the officers and the business in 

 which each is respectively engaged : T. R. Finley, president, 

 attorney at law ; Paul Tietzen, vice-president, manager of the 

 three banks of Santa Maria; M. Fliesher, treasurer, mer- 

 chant; W. A. Haslam, director, merchant; Charles Bradley, 

 director, capitalist; Ruben Hart, director, proprietor water 

 and electrical works ; L. E. Blochman, secretary. Detailed 

 information regarding the oil fields will be furnished by the 

 secretary upon application. 



The world will watch the further development of these 

 wonderful oil fields with intense interest, and no doubt 

 large capital will find profitable investment here. 



TO THE POINT. 



WARNING TO HOMESEEKERS. 



Numerous warnings have been issued from time to 

 time by the Eeclamation Service to intending settlers 

 in the West, cautioning them, before purchasing lands 

 which are advertised as being included in a Eeclama- 

 tion project, to be fully informed as to the exact limits 

 of the irrigable areas. 



Notwithstanding these warnings, many innocent 

 persons have been swindled by false representations 

 of land agents. One of the commonest forms of swind- 

 ling is to claim that certain lands are embraced within 

 a Government irrigation project, and on the strength 

 of this statement to sell the lands to non-residents at 

 fancy prices. It frequently occurs that these lands are 

 embraced within an irrigation district, but cannot be 

 furnished with water from the Government project, 

 which fact, of course, is very carefully suppressed by 

 the land agent. The innocent purchaser discovers too 

 late that he has paid an excessive price for land of 

 little value and unsuited for a home. 



A case in point has recently been reported to the 

 Service by several investors, in which a company offer- 

 ing lands for sale states that the tracts are within the 

 limits of lands withdrawn for a project under the 

 Reclamation Act. Investigation shows that this is un- 

 doubtedly true, but the company fails to state that 

 these lands cannot be watered from it becaiise the area 

 irrigated by the canal system was limited, and these 

 particular lands could not for several years, if ever, 

 be included within the area irrigated. 



Before making investments under such advertise- 

 ments, investors should write to the office of the Rec- 

 lamation Service on the project, or the Water Users' 

 Association established there, and obtain full informa- 

 tion as to the condition of the lands and the possibility 

 of furnishing water to them. If the proper local ad- 

 dresses are not known, a letter to the Reclamation 

 Service at Washington, D. C., containing a full descrip- 

 tion of the land, will receive prompt attention. 



Lute Wilcox, editor of the Denver Field and Farm, 

 frequently publishes matter concerning the Forestry 

 Bureau and affairs in the west which is pat and directly 

 to the point. We append hereto clipping from a recent 

 issue of the Field and Farm which explains itself : 



"It was refreshing to read the report of how Con- 

 gressman George Cook tanned Pinchot's hide the other 

 day. Our good old congressman-at-large got up in 

 open meeting and challenged the statement recently 

 published by Baron Pinchot that the receipts of his 

 forestry bureau are in excess of the expenditures. He 

 cited the testimony of Mr. Pinchot before the agri- 

 cultural committee that expenses of his bureau for the 

 year ending June 30, 1907, were $64,000 in excess 

 of the receipts. He predicted that the receipts for 

 the current year would not show an increase as esti- 

 mated by Pinchot, but on the contrary would show a 

 decrease on account of the inactivity in the mines 

 usually requiring large quantities of timber. Mr. Cook 

 said further that the price placed on mining timber 

 by the bureau, $5 a thousand, is unreasonable and ex- 

 cessive. He called attention to the arbitrary ruling 

 of the bureau requiring mining companies purchasing 

 their timber to cut and remove it from the forests 

 within a year and added: 'Now, what we want in 

 Colorado in the management of the forest bureau is 

 less sentiment and more practicability, fewer Harvard 

 graduates and rough riders and some practical lumber 

 and millmen who know something about the business 

 from experience, and that the forestry bureau shall 

 comply strictly with the law.' " 



PALOUSE ORCHARDS TO BE PUT UNDER IRRI- 

 GATION. 



Four thousand acres of land near Hooper, Whit- 

 man County, Wash., south of Spokane, to be known as 

 Palouse Orchards, owned by the Palouse Irrigation & 

 Power Company, headed by H. C. Peters, president, and 

 L. H. Marsh, secretary, will be put under irrigation 

 within the next twelve months, and it is expected that 

 500 acres of this will be ready for this year's crop. 



Water for the new district will be taken from the 

 Palonse River, which will be tapped by a canal four 

 miles above Hooper, and brought down one mile below 

 the town, whence a wooden flume, 24 by 30 inches, will 

 carry the water one mile further down the river to the 

 tract of 500 acres that is to be watered at once. Later 

 a large flume will tap the canal at the same place, as 

 -the small one and will be led across to the north bank 

 of the river to carry water down to the other tracts 

 that are to be put under the ditch. 



Palouse Orchards is unlike any other irrigation 

 project in the northwest. Instead of one large and 

 continuous tract 'on one or both sides of the river it 

 is a series of tracts lying between the river and the 

 high hills on either sides, no one tract containing more 

 than 500 acres. The land extends down the river ten 

 miles, and is close to the base of steep hills and almost 

 surrounded in patches by the ragged arms of the cliffs 

 that jut out into the valley. The land is volcanic ash 

 and the climate is similar to that of Wenatchee, the 

 home of the big red apple. 



