PROGRESS IN RECLAMATION—BISSELL. 509 
soil which allows the rapid escape of irrigation water and the leach- 
ing of soil. These difficulties are being overcome to some extent, and 
progress in cultivation is steady and encouraging. Urgent requests 
have been made for the Government to enlarge the project by taking 
over some of the private canals which have insufficient water supply 
and constructing a reservoir to serve them. This can not be under- 
taken without additional funds. 
The Klamath project in Oregon and California is being gradually 
extended as the waters of Tule Lake recede owing to the diversion of 
the supply through the Government works. Drainage works are in 
progress and have been successful so far as constructed. The irri- 
gated land is productive and the settlers generally prosperous. 
The Belle Fourche project in South Dakota is growing in produc- 
tion and prosperity. In some localities the water table is rising and 
drainage works should be installed, but arrangements have not yet 
been made for the repayment of the cost. A small amount of the land 
under the feed canal and not served from the Owl Creek Reservoir 
suffers from water shortage in some years, and plans are under way 
for providing a small storage reservoir to serve these lands. 
On the Strawberry Valley project in Utah the principal work con- 
structed by the Government is a storage reservoir in Strawberry 
Valley on the headwaters of the Duchesne River and the diversion of 
its waters through a long tunnel to the westward slope of the 
Wasatch Range, where the water is diverted from the Spanish Fork 
River and an irrigation system constructed. This system is being 
operated by the irrigators under special contract, and payments of 
construction charges are being regularly made. In many instances 
canal systems already in existence are being operated by associations 
which have made arrangements for storage water from the Straw- 
berry Valley Reservoir and are operating their own canal systems. 
There are still some water rights in the Strawberry Reservoir for 
sale. 
Three extremely dry years—1917, 1918, and 1919—throughout a 
large portion of the West have broken all records for drought, and 
thousands of live stock and many private irrigation projects have 
suffered for lack of water. Dry farming has generally been a failure 
throughout these regions. 
The Reclamation Service experienced serious water shortage on 
one project—the Okanogan project in northern Washington—in 
1918, and while there was some shortage also in 1919 it was not so 
great. Pumping plants were installed at Salmon Lake and Duck 
Lake to supplement the storage reservoirs, which did not entirely 
fill. The additional pumping capacity and the enlargment of the 
reservoir hold-over capacity are the remedies being carried out. 
