348 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



COLORADO. 



A step was taken recently toward the reorgan- 

 ization of The LaPlatta Land & Irrigation Com- 

 pany and The LaPlatta Ditch & Reservoir Com- 

 pany, looking to completion of the irrigation proj- 

 ect undertaken by the companies in southwestern 

 Colorado. 



Two parties in the employ of the United States 

 Reclamation Service are now at work at the site of 

 the new Taylor Park reclamation project, 33 miles 

 north of Gunnison, Colo. One party is drilling for 

 bed rock at the mouth of Taylor Canyon, where 

 the dam is to be built. The reservoir when com- 

 pleted will be 10 miles in circumference and the 

 dam in the narrow canyon will be 190 feet high and 

 300 feet wide. The reservoir when complete will 

 furnish an adequate water supply for the entire sea- 

 son for all the territory irrigated through the Gun- 

 nison tunnel. 



A Denver paper states that contracts will be 

 signed in a few days between the State Land Board 

 of Wyoming and the President of the Missouri, 

 Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad for the building of the 

 Wind River irrigation project, which will water 

 200,000 acres of land in Wyoming and which was 

 originally planned by J. Sterling Morton and associ- 

 ates. It is a Carey Act project and will cost about 

 $10,000,000, and requires three years for completion. 



Colorado has 2,100,000 acres of irrigated land 

 now actually under cultivation and offers to the 

 eastern farmer opportunity to settle there and to 

 devote himself to agriculture with the absolute as-' 

 surance of rich returns for his labor. Colorado's 

 dry land section has brought many hundreds of 

 settlers there in the past year but her irrigated land 

 brings many thousands every year. 



Discussing the Greeley Poudre irrigation proj- 

 ect recently, D. A. Camfield, of Greeley, president of 

 the company, who was in Denver in connection 

 with that company's troubles, stated that the com- 

 pany is largely in debt and has been unable to 

 take care of its obligations on account of the em- 

 barrassment brought about through the failure of 

 Parson Sons & Co. to sell the bonds the proceeds 

 from which were to be used in constructing the sys- 

 tem in compliance with an agreement with the Gree- 

 ley Poudre District. Mr. Camfield states that the 

 failure of Farson Sons & Co. to sell the bonds was 

 largely due to the existence of a suit of the State 

 of W'yoming against the State of Colorado wherein 

 a substantial part of the water supply contracted for 

 by the company to be sold to the district was in- 

 volved. 



The chief of the field division of the United 

 States Land Office found a farmer in northern Colo- 

 rado last week while he was inspecting the North 

 Sterling irrigation project who will earn enough 

 gross income from his land the first year to pay 

 the full cost of the land, which was $4,000. The 

 owner is a Russian and resides near the town of 

 Iliff. 



MONTANA. 



Secretary of the Interior Lane has been a vis- 

 itor in Montana for the past week or ten days and 

 has been accompanied by officials of the State as 

 well as the officials of the railways traversing that 

 State. It is hoped that Secretary Lane was able 

 to secure some definite information concerning the 

 status of reclamation affairs in the Northwest from 

 Louis Hill, with whom he traveled for some time 

 through Montana. 



Dr. R. H. Eel, secretary of the Commercial 

 Club of Helena, Mont., is very much elated over 

 the prospects for full irrigation of Prickly Pear Val- 

 ley. Within the past week it is stated that in the 

 neighborhood of 600 acres have been signed up by 

 the various members of the committee that have 

 been working, making a total of nearly 12,000 acres. 



Secretary of the Interior Lane has made the 

 announcement to the agriculturists of Montana of 

 the appointment of I. D. O'Donnell of Billings as 

 supervising farmer on all irrigation projects of the 

 government in the Northwest. Mr. O'Donnell's ap- 

 pointment is effective at once and his jurisdiction 

 extends from Belle Fourche, S. D., to Boise, Ida. 

 Mr. O'Donnell has just spent four days going over 

 the Sun River project to secure information to place 

 before the Secretary. 



The Daley-Seaman Company, Miles City, 

 Mont., has organized for the manufacture and sale 

 of an irrigation device for lifting water. The head 

 office of the company is at Miles City and the plants 

 for manufacturing will be located there. J. H. Da- 

 ley and James Seaman, with Walter S. Seaman of 

 Miles City, are the incorporators. 



The unusual supply of water in the Beaver 

 Head River, Montana, most of which is used for 

 irrigation purposes, has made it unnecessary for the 

 district court to appoint a water commissioner this 

 year. The records show that there has been close 

 to 50,000 inches of water decrease out of Beaver 

 Head River from the Lima to the point of rock 16 

 miles below Dillon, and in low water time it keeps 

 three commissioners busy measuring the flow into 

 the irrigation ditches in order to give the older 

 rights their preference over new ditches. 



L. D. Borden, who had the contract for the ex- 

 tension of the Bitter Root Valley Irrigation Com- 

 pany's canal to the eight-mile district and who com- 

 pleted the work several weeks ago, has taken a 

 contract near Butte, says the Stephensville Register. 



F. H. Newell, director of the reclamation 

 service, was asked recently by an Oregon news- 

 paper to make a statement concerning an inter- 

 view at Ontario, Ore., with L. W. Hill, charging 

 extravagance and incompetence. Mr. Newell said 

 that the statements attributed to junior Mr. Hill are 

 too vague to attract much comment or extended 

 denial. The reclamation service has just undergone 

 an extensive investigation by the secretary without 

 the loss of his confidence in its ability, or the 

 quality of its work, consequently criticisms from 

 other sources do not seem to affect Director Newell. 



