910 



THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



Reclamation Notes 



CALIFORNIA. 



Chief Engineer Hoar, of the Northern California Power 

 Company, has installed eight electric motors for irrigation 

 pumping plants. Among them is a 30-H. P. pumping plant 

 for W. M. Shaw, the millionaire lumberman of Maine, who is 

 experimenting with the productive capacity. 



A contract has been entered into for the construction of 

 big levee system that will reclaim 10,000 acj^P of land in 

 Yolo County, to be called West Sacrament^^The contract 

 is for $100,000. 



Irrigation from pumping plants is being resorted to with 

 great success in the vicinity of Paradise, Butte County, the 

 water being only about fifteen feet under the ground. 



The Board of Directors of the Oakdale Irrigation district 

 met recently and decided to advertise for sale $1.000,000 

 worth of bonds. They also decided to advertise for bids for 

 the construction of 100 miles of concrete canals. 



Notwithstanding the refusal of the Board of Supervisors 

 to contribute to the project for fear of establishing an expen- 

 sive precedent, the directors of the Hallwood Irrigation Dis- 

 trict have proceeded with the work of digging the main 

 ditches and laterals. Twelve men were engaged upon the 

 main ditches and four on the laterals. It is hoped to get 

 water on the land included in the district this summer. The 

 water will be taken from the Yuba River near the Diggs farm. 



It is reported that the irrigation system for the Indians 

 near Banning will probably be completed this summer. After 

 many unavoidable delays, C. R. Olberg, head of the engineers 

 for the Indian Department, has taken charge and is now 

 giving his personal attention to the project. The work was 

 started two years ago and a tunnel was put in, with a con- 

 siderable mileage of cement ditch. It is expected that the 

 land will be allotted in small tracts when the waterworks are 

 done. 



Many water users of Yolo County met in the chambers 

 of the Supervisors recently at a hearing for the fixing of 

 water rates by the board. The interested parties are the Yolo 

 Consolidated Water Company and the water users on the" 

 ditches of the company. The object of the hearing is to fix 

 the value of the property of the irrigation company, and if 'the 

 present rates do not net the stockholders 6 per cent on the 

 valuation, it is proposed to raise the rates. Judge M. K. 

 Harris of Fresno and E. W. Armfield represent the com- 

 pany, A. C. Huston the water users on the Moore Ditch and 

 Thomas & Thomas and Grant Hudson some private ditch 

 companies. 



Official announcement has been made by the Sacramento 

 Valley Irrigation Company that an agreement and all papers 

 had been signed by the company and the land owners of 

 Glenn and Colusa Counties, who have been engaged in litiga- 

 tion with the company, whereby the litigation will be aban- 

 doned, all cases in court dismissed and, after certain court 

 formalities have been attended to, the bonds, which for years 

 have clouded the title to the vast tract of 151,000 acres of 

 land owned by the company, will be destroyed. 



Rio Vista will be benefited by the reclamation of the 

 Egbert district at an early date so that the entire acreage can 

 be cultivated this season. The district is one of the most 

 fertile in the state and the large crops it will produce will 

 give employment to many men. The work commenced bv the 

 government at the mouth of the river should render the 

 Egbert district safe from overflow in the future and make it 

 one of the great producing sections of California. 



To irrigate 23,000 acres of land in Butte Valley is one of 

 the objects of the Central California Land Aerency. which 

 has purchased all the interests of the Butte Valley Land 



Company. The transfer includes 23,000 acres of land, the 

 townsite of Macdoel and the hotel. The company is buying 

 land from the Dunkards and any one who wishes to sell. The 

 land will be colonized in twenty, forty and eighty-acre tracts 

 and the purchasers will be provided with water and a market 

 for their produce. 



The United States Department of Agriculture has just is- 

 sued a progress report of co-operative irrigation investigations 

 in California covering the ten-year period 1900-1910, which is 

 available for free distribution on application to the United 

 States Irigation Investigations, Berkeley, Cal., or the Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture at Washington, D. C. 



Several carloads of mules recently arrived at Willows' 

 to be used for work in building laterals for the Sacramento 

 Valley Irrigation Company. Hundreds of miles of these 

 ditches will be constructed during the coming summer and 

 hundreds of men and teams will be used. 



Work on the great Orland reclamation project in Glenn 

 County is complete, the Kugh reservoir backed up by the East 

 Park dam is full and overflowing and the entire system will 

 be opened and water distributed over 14,000 acres of land. 

 The great dam is one of the most substantial and imposing 

 concrete structures in Northern California. 



There are thirteen breaks in the levee system of the 

 back-water slide of Reclamation District No. 108 of Colusa 

 County, and water is flowing through all of them. The three- 

 dredges and the three hundred men employed have been un- 

 able to stop the breaks. 



The Comptroller of Currency recently decided that the 

 Reclamation Bureau could not spend this year $50,000 on the 

 Modoc Point and Klamath Reclamation projects. The reason 

 was given that Congress has limited the cost to $155,000 in- 

 stead of $185,000 as was estimated. This means a year's 

 delay unless a remedy is found. 



The great Mclntosh and Kraft tracts of land in Glenn 

 County and Tehama will be thrown into a municipal corpo- 

 ration under the revision of the Wright law at once and water 

 pumped from the Sacramento River to irrigate them. The* 

 two tracts contain about 13,000 acres. 



. The United States Department of Agriculture reports that 

 construction work is now under way that will, when com- 

 pleted, result in the irrigation of 750,000 acres of land in 

 California. Of this area about two-thirds lies north of Teha- 

 chapi and the remainder in southern California. 



COLORADO. 



Much activity is noticeable around Wilson and through- 

 out the section of land under the Pueblo-Rocky Ford project 

 which will be brought under irrigation this Spring. The 

 company expects to turn water into the ditches very shortly 

 and several thousand acres of land will be irrigated during 

 the present year. 



The plan of the men back of the Laramie-Poudre irriga- 

 tion project and the Greeley-Poudre irrigation district, to 

 raise capital to complete the gigantic scheme which will 

 place 125,000 acres of Weld county land under water, was 

 rhade public recently. The plan also called for the annulment 

 of a contract with the Chicago bonding house which guar- 

 anteed the sale of the construction bonds upon the payment 

 of $250,000 by the bonding house. 



The largest sale of irrigated land in the vicinity of Den- 

 ver made so far this year has just been closed for the trans- 

 fer of the 900-acre tract, known as "Pomona, lying three miles 

 north of Arvada, to George E. DeWolf, formerly of Mon- 

 ango, X. D., at an average price of $150 an acre, or about 

 $135,000 for the tract. 



Dr. W. P. Harlow of the state university, recently elected 

 president of the Association of American Colleges, is pushing 

 an irrigation project by which nearly 2.000,000,000 cubic feet 

 of water will be available for use in Boulder and vicinity. 

 The old Owen Lake, north of Boulder, which draws its water 

 from South Boulder Creek by ditch, is to be increased in 



