THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



ural expert of Cornell University, recorded the fact that 

 the yellow Newtown pippin " is twice as large as the same 

 apple grown in the Hudson River Valley" of New York. 

 Such delicate fruits as apricots, peaches, and nectarines, 

 are successfully grown in the lower valleys of southern 

 Idaho. 



While there are occasional instances of a temperature 

 twelve degrees below zero, the winter in this part of the 

 State is really short and mild, being influenced by the 

 Chinook winds, which make their way from the Pacific 

 over a distance of five hundred miles. Spring opens early 

 and is apt to be windy. The summer temperature is 

 high, though the nights are invariably cool. The almost 

 complete absence of rain between spring and late autumn 

 makes the best conditions for irrigation, though it also 

 involves dry roads and clouds of dust when the wind is 

 high. Of the healthfulness of Idaho it is enough to say 

 that it shows the smallest percentage of deaths of any 

 State or Territory in the Union. This is not only the 

 official record of the population as a whole, but it is the 

 showing of the army statistics, which furnish a better 

 test, because the conditions of life in that service are re- 

 markably even throughout the country. 



The greatest irrigation development has occurred in the 

 upper Snake River Valley in the neighborhood of Idaho 

 Falls. Here over four hundred thousand acres of land 

 have been watered at a cost of more than a million dol- 

 lars. The chief crops are grain and alfalfa, the former 

 yielding from sixty to eighty bushels, the latter from 

 seven to ten tons per acre. Land sells for from twenty to 

 fifty dollars per acre With perpetual water-rights. The 

 canals are owned by private companies and rcp- 

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