THE: IEEIGATION AGE. 



441 



The Canadian Pacific Railway Company has begun 

 construction of a dam three miles southwest of its sta- 

 tion at Bassano. Alta., Canada, which will be the largest 

 of its kind in America. The lake created by this dam will 

 be more than ten miles long, half a mile wide, and forty 

 feet deep. Irrigating canals and ditches which will be 

 fed by water controlled by the Bassano dam will have a 

 total mileage of 2,500 miles and almost 600,000 acres of 

 land will be irrigated by it. 



Dodson North Canal, Milk River project, Montana. The 

 work involves the excavation of about 420.000 cubic yards 

 of material and is situated on the north side of Milk 

 river and adjacent to the main line of the Great Northern 

 Railway in the vicinity of Wagner and Exeter, Montana. 

 The bids will be opened at the office of the U. S. 

 Reclamation Service at Malta, Montana, Novermber 11, 

 1912. 



The Kentucky Overhead Irrigation Company has filed 

 articles of incorporation; capital stock, $150,000. Its 

 stockholders are Carl Houser, Shelbyville; F. H. Hibbard 

 and F. H. Hibbard, Jr., and George P. Emrick of Louis- 

 ville. The company purposes manufacturing irrigating 

 machinery, buying and developing real estate and water 

 rights. . . 



The state engineer of South Dakota has granted a 

 permit to Mattis Haivala and Lizzie Haivala of Buffalo 

 county to take water from Bad Lands and Haivala creeks 

 for irrigating 109 acres, and to E. M. Sedgwick and Colen 

 Blunck of Presho, to appropriate water from White river 

 for the irrigation of 383 acres. 



That the first unit of the Prickly Pear Valley irriga- 

 tion project in Montana will be completed within the next 

 two months, is announced by M. H. Geary, who is in 

 charge of the enterprise. This unit consists of 8,000 acres 

 of land which will be brought under the ditches being 

 constructed by the Missouri River Electric Power and 

 Irrigation Company. 



The Director of the Reclamation Service is asking 

 for proposals for furnishing gates, valves, operating ma- 

 chinery and appurtenances for Lahontan dam. on the 

 Truckee-Carson project in Xevada. The bids will be op- 

 ened at the office of the U. S. Reclamation Service at 

 Fallon, Xevada, on November 21, 1012. 



The Director of the Reclamation Service is asking for 

 proposals for the construction of about ten miles of the 



THE IRRIGATION OF ALFALFA. 



(Continued from page 434.) 



land to a depth of seven feet. This is equivalent to a 

 precipitation of eighty-four inches, and is very evidently 

 too much. Of course, this water does not pile up evenly 

 on the land. It does, however, run over the fields, wash- 

 ing out the available plant food, filling up the soil so as 

 to exclude the air and bring the alkali to the surface, 

 and making swamps of the lower lands. 



Many irrigation farmers entertain the mistaken notion 

 that water is plant food. Water is the dissolver and the 

 carrier of plant food, and must be used for these purposes. 

 If supplied in proper quantities, it moistens the soil and 

 makes conditions favorable for growth. If too much is 

 applied the effect is sure to be harmful. After the soil 

 has been wet down four or five feet the addition of water 

 ought to be discontinued. To pour more on only fills up 

 the lower soil layers, shutting out the air and making 

 conditions unfavorable for root development, or, in case 

 of soils where the subsoil is open, washing through and 

 carrying the dissolved food with it. 



Irrigation farming controls one more factor than is 

 controlled in humid agriculture. The irrigator may have 

 rain when he needs it. In western Canada, where the 

 soils are stored with much accumulated plant food, where 

 the hours of sunshine during the growing season are 

 greatly in excess of those in eastern localities, the condi- 

 tions for very high production are most favorable. An 

 irrigation system properly utilized practically insures 

 maximum crops every year. The irrigation farmer should 

 inform himself so that he may put the system to its 

 proper use. 



The Modern Meth|od of 

 Reclaiming Swamp and Marsh Land 



PRIMITIVE hand labor methods of 

 irrigation and reclamation are giving 

 way to the Buckeye Open Ditcher. 

 The machine-made ditch is a better ditch; 

 it is less expensive in first cost and less ex- 

 pensive to maintain, and the use of the 

 Buckeye Open Ditcher does away with the 

 troublesome labor camp, and the big pay- 

 roll investment. 



In the Everglades of Florida, the marshes of 

 Louisiana and in many other places the 

 Buckeye Open Ditcher is reclaiming thous- 

 ands of acres at minimum cost. The Buck- 

 eye is built in sizes to cut ditches from 2}/% 

 to 12 feet wide at the top and any desirable 

 depth. 



If you are contemplating or actually engaged 

 in reclamation or irrigation work, investigate 

 the Buckeye Open Ditcher now. 



Send for Catalog 26 today 



THE BUCKEYE TRACTION DITCHER COMPANY 



FINDLAY, OHIO 



