THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



89 



FLATHEAD PROJECT SHOULD GET IMMEDIATE 



AND ADEQUATE SUPPORT 



Out at Poison, Montana, which is the center 

 of the Flathead Irrigation project, the enterprising 

 citizens of that entire section have begun an agita- 

 tion for an adequate appropriation. 



These men, who have everything at stake, are 

 asking for no huge sum, merely an appropriation 

 which will to an extent consummate the plans al- 

 ready approved by Congress and the Reclamation 

 Department. 



The cost of the project was to be about six and 

 one-half million dollars. About one and a half mil- 

 lion dollars have been appropriated for it. The 

 government invited settlers to come on the reserva- 

 tion and buy its lands, with the understanding that 

 water would be put thereon. The government di- 

 vided the land to be homesteaded into irrigated 

 units of from forty to eighty acres, thus impliedly 

 assuring settlers who purchased the lands that their 

 units would be irrigated by the government. Forty 

 acres is too small a farm for non-irrigated farming ; 

 so of eighty acres. It takes at least three hundred 

 and twenty acres to successfully carry on dry farm- 

 ing. Having cut these units into forty and eighty- 

 acre tracts and authorized this project, the govern- 

 ment assured the settlers that it would put water 

 on their land and they went on the land with that 

 understanding. 



The settlers were justified in assuming that 

 work on the project would be prosecuted with due 

 diligence and completed within a reasonable time, 

 but it was, and is, the duty of the Government to 

 hasten the completion of the project with all pos- 

 sible speed and put water on the lands of both 

 Indians and white settlers as soon as possible. 

 Nothing is to be gained by doing. otherwise. There 

 is no reason, there can be no argument, why it 

 should be otherwise. 



It will require about five millions of dollars 

 to complete the project, and the only sensible way 

 for the Government to do, the only business-like 

 way, would be to appropriate an average of a mil- 

 lion dollars a year and complete the project in five 

 years. It will cost just so much money, and it is 

 nothing to the Government whether it appropriates 

 this money in five or fifty years. 



Largely through the efforts of Senator Henry 

 L. Meyers, who has labored unstintingly for the 

 district, and of James Harbert, chairman of the 

 Committee on Irrigation of the Poison Chamber of 

 Commerce, an appropriation of $750,000 has been 

 recommended. THE IRRIGATION AGE, speaking for 

 the men who are depending upon Government 

 promises, hopes that the sum will finally be ap- 

 propriated. 



IRRIGATION BONDS ABOVE PAR 



An indication of the prosperity of the financial 

 market of Los Angeles was given before the Board 

 of Supervisors on Feb. 8, when representatives of 

 various large financial interests instituted a lively 

 contest for the $2,640,000 San Fernando Valley 6 

 per cent irrigation bonds. The first third of $868,- 

 000 was finally awarded to the Torrance-Marshall 

 Company, which paid a premium of $24,315 over 

 par, as contrasted to the offer several weeks ago 

 made by M. S. Hellman of the Security Trust and 

 Savings Bank, and J. C. Drake of the Los Angeles 

 Trust and Savings Bank, who wanted the entire 

 issue of the bonds at par and a premium of only 

 $3,000. Los Angeles Examiner. 



The bond issue of the Anderson-Cottonwood 

 irrigation district brought on Feb. 5 the highest 

 price ever paid in California for an issue of this 

 kind. The bonds were sold to Edward N. Nearson, 

 Jr., of San Francisco, for 95.63, realizing $28,800 

 more for the district than the highest estimate of 

 bankers and officials. 



The contract for the purchase of the bonds 

 was signed with a single condition in favor of the 

 district, that it need not sell the entire bond issue 

 of $480,000 at 6 per cent interest, but may dispose 

 of only $400.000. In view of the fact that the issue 

 brought $28,800 more than expected this course 

 may be followed. 



There were five other bids. The Capital Na- 



tional Bank of Sacramento, 93.77; E. J. Knight of 

 Los Angeles, 93.77y 2 for $400,000 of issue ; Spokane 

 and Eastern Trust Company with Clarkson-Earls 

 Trust Company, varying offers, averaging about 90 ; 

 George E. Catts of Stockton, 90; J. R. Mason of 

 San Francisco, 92.65 for $150,000 of issue. Sacra- 

 mento, Cal., Record-News. 



NAMES NEW CHIEF OF CONSTRUCTION 



Secretary Lane has appointed Frank Elwin 

 Weymouth chief of construction of 'the Reclama- 

 tion Service, with headquarters at Denver, Colo. 

 Mr. Weymouth succeeds Mr. Sydney B. William- 

 son, who resigned to accept a position in Chile with 

 the American Smelting and Refining Co. 



Mr. Weymouth was born June 2, 1874 ; gradu- 

 ated from the University of Maine with the degree 

 of B. C. E. in 1896, and that of C. E. in 1899; was 

 employed on municipal engineering work in New 

 England and Canada ; with the Isthmian Canal Com- 

 mission on surveys and estimates for a proposed 

 oceanic canal through Nicaragua; on railroad con- 

 struction in Ecuador ; and from 1902 to the present 

 time has been in the Reclamation Service. 



Mr. Weymouth has had a wide experience in 

 both construction and operation work, and has many 

 achievements in the field of engineering to his credit, 

 the most notable being the construction of the Ar- 

 rowrock Dam in Idaho the highest dam in the 

 world which was built under his direct super- 

 vision. 



