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The National Geographic Magazine 



Idaho, you know, is the state that is 

 going to prosper most from govern- 

 ment irrigation. We have twice as 

 much land and twice as much water to 

 reclaim it as any other state affected by 

 the Corey act. Already work is in 

 progress on irrigation plans which will 

 reclaim to cultivation half a million 

 acres. 



The Minnedonka plan, which will 

 conserve the water of Snake River, will 

 make tillable 140,000 acres, and of these 

 90,000 will be open for cultivation June 

 1 next. These 90,000 acres are already 

 settled. Work is in progress on an 

 even larger irrigation scheme, the 

 Boise-payette plan, which will dis- 

 tribute the waters of the Boise and 

 Payette rivers over 350,000 acres. 



The great advantage of irrigated 

 land is that it reduces agriculture to an 

 exact science. The farmers aren't at 

 the mercy of the weather man- There 

 are no dry seasons and no wet seasons. 



In sugar-beet culture, for instance, 

 Idaho will soon be the leading state. 

 We already have three large sugar-beet 

 factories and are going to have two 

 more, one at Payette and the other at 

 Norma, in the near future. These new 

 factories will each slice up 1,200 tons 

 of beets a day. That means something. 

 It means that each one will manufac- 

 ture 18,000 tons of sugar in the course 

 of a campaign. Beet culture is very 

 profitable to the growers, and the 

 Idaho beets have a higher percentage 

 of saccharine matter than those raised 

 in any other state. 



In the northern part of the state we 

 have the largest tract of white pine in 

 this country and we also have extensive 

 forests of yellow pine. In both sec- 

 tions there are rivers to float the tim- 

 ber, and all we need to realize on the 

 wealth of the forests is better railroad 

 transportation. 



I doubt if any state is richer in min- 

 erals. Already we produce 53 per cent 



*An interview with Governor Gooding, of Idaho, published in the New York Sun, December, 



many ways attractive country. It has 

 remained about the same for many 

 years, but with the general awakening 

 chroughout the Caribbean, the American 

 mediterranean, it will be the first to 

 feel it. Although it has drawbacks, 

 the fact that it is truly tropical, that it 

 is the natural gateway to the great 

 Tropics beyond, that it is in the track 

 of the great commerce to the Gulf, 

 that it is of great strategic importance, 

 and that it is soon to be traversed by a 

 railroad which will be a stupendous and 

 interesting engineering feat and will 

 bind the keys together like a string of 

 pearls, it will soon be the site of many 

 winter villas and of gardens yielding 

 the choice fruits and vegetables of the 

 Tropics in addition to the sponges, 

 fishes, turtles, and other products of 

 the sea. 



The railroad project to Key West 

 was the subject of an article in The; 

 National Geographic Magazine some 

 years ago. Concrete construction will 

 figure prominently in this work. It 

 will rest on solid piers with re-enforced 

 concrete arches. One plan calls for 50- 

 foot spans, the Other 80. The height is 

 the same in both cases, 25 feet from the 

 water to the crown of the arch, the 

 track being 31 feet above the water. 

 The concrete work is about six miles 

 in length, part of it in the vicinity of 

 Knight's Key, the remainder between 

 Bahia Honda and Big Pine Key. A 

 large percentage of the water spaces 

 will be filled with a solid embankment, 

 leaving an occasional waterway 25 feet 

 in width. 



PROSPEROUS IDAHO* 



WE'RE all proud, of course, to 

 have the largest and most for- 

 midable ship in the navy named after 

 our state. It's an honor that we appre- 

 ciate. At the same time we know and 

 don't mind saying that the state is 

 worthy of the battleship. 



1905- 



