THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



13 



THE NORTHERN PACIFIC COUNTRY 



Some Observations of That Territory 



Discussing the northwest country traversed by the 

 Northern Pacific recently with Mr. A. M. Cleland, general 

 passenger agent, it was leaned that conditions were all 

 that could be asked in the way 9f crop production, satis- 

 faction of settlers on the land, prices for the products sold 

 and other features which go to make up the ranchman's 

 life. It was stated, however, that there must be some 

 arrangement made whereby the producers of large quan- 

 tities of apples and other fruits may .be able to market 

 them at a profit in the middle and eastern states. When 

 asked what was the cause of so much fruit going to waste 

 in the west, Mr. Cleland was apparently reluctant to 

 answer. He finally stated, however, that in the opinion 

 of the producers the commission men throughout the mid- 

 dle and eastern states are largely to blame for the condi- 

 tions which now exist. He stated that on a recent trip 

 through the Northwest over the Northern Pacific lines 

 which was taken with a train load of general passenger 

 agents of the various railroads of the United States who 

 were visiting Yellowstone Park and other points of 

 interest along that line, large quantities of fruit were 

 found upon the ground unpicked and unmarketed. He 

 stated that some way of getting these fruits onto the mar- 

 ket must be devised whereby, when they are marketed 

 and sold the producer will obtain his share of the profits. 



His idea is that the cider industry has not been properly 

 developed and he believes much more may be made by 

 turning all his apples into cider. His experiment may 

 offer a suggestion to some of our Western producers. 

 They of course are not as near the market centers but a 

 half dozen or fifty of them could join together and ship 

 their products to some central city in Illinois, Iowa, Wis- 

 consin, Michigan or Indiana and distribute from there 

 and rent a modest priced storeroom from which to retail 

 the fruit. 



The foregoing is preliminary to a general discussion 

 of conditions along the line of the Northern Pacific Rail- 

 way, and the following data was secured from officials of 

 that system. 



Prosperity and contentment are the words which best 

 describe the recent marvelous achievements in the North- 

 west, where the pioneers and those who followed them 

 have, seemingly, made something out of nothing. This 

 one time sagebrush country only, long looked upon as an 

 absolutely worthless desert, has become a crop-producing, 

 home-supporting area of inexhaustible fertility, greater 

 in extent than the cultivated lands in New England and 

 capable of supporting a larger rural population. 



Out of the old arid wastes have sprung wonderful 

 orchards, vineyards, berry fields, truck gardens, and fields 

 of golden grain and waving grasses. Towns and villages 

 peopled with a happy, optimistic population, and com- 

 fortable homes in the country inhabited by a satisfied 

 yet energetic husbandry, dot the landscape. Banks, liter- 



A Barley Field in Lower Yellowstone Valley, Montana. 



In discussing this matter later with commission men in 

 Chicago the writer learned that they are exceedingly re- 

 luctant to express an opinion on the subject. They were 

 inclined to criticise the railways and said the freignt 

 rates had to do with this condition. It had been learned 

 previously, however, through investigation at other points 

 that the railways are offering every inducement in the 

 way of freight rates, and it may eventually simmer down 

 to a condition where the fruit producers must open up 

 their own market in the Eastern and Central States and 

 have the product of their ranches handled by some com- 

 petent man. This brings to mind the fact that a farmer 

 in Southern Illinois who is interested in business in Chi- 

 cago has adopted a method which could be adopted by 

 Western ranchmen who are large producers. Mr. George 

 B. Cogdal, a well known merchant of Chicago, owns 

 three farms, two in Michigan and one in Southern Illinois. 

 The Southern Illinois farm has on it an orchard of hiurh 

 grade apples. Jonathan and Ben Davis varieties, and 

 he had adopted the system of renting stores in such towns 

 in Illinois as Elgin, Aurora. Oak Park and elsewhere, and 

 selling the product of his orchard at retail. He informed 

 the writer recently that he is getting twice as much for 

 the apples as he would have gotten through a commission 

 house and in many instances, four times what he could 

 have sold for when the apples were made into cider. 



ally bulging with the wealth of their depositors, and rail- 

 roads and commercial and industrial enterprises are con- 

 vincing exponents of the march of progress in what was 

 the desert wilds less than two decades ago. 



This wonderful but actual transformation is due to 

 irrigation, the bringing to the soil the waters from streams 

 which, constantly eating away the mountains and foot- 

 hills, supply new life principles in the form of rich al- 

 luvium from the decaying rocks and vegetation of the 

 uplands. 



Irrigation has been practiced from the very earliest 

 days of Egyptian civilization to the present time. It is 

 only, however, in comparatively recent years that any 

 particular attention has been paid to it in this country. 

 The reason for this is obvious. In the eastern and middle 

 states it is not absolutely necessary. It was only when 

 the pioneers, traveling west in search of unoccupied terri- 

 tory, reached a region where without the application of 

 water to the soil nothing could be grown, that irrigating 

 streams were turned upon the desert, which readily re- 

 sponding to the beneficent influence soon began to blos- 

 som like a veritable garden. From this period up to the 

 present time the work has been spreading and increasing 

 until now vast tracts of what was once known as the Great 

 American Desert have been brought under cultivation. 



Irrigation invariably means intensive cultivation. Many 



