58 rOEEST KESEEVES 11^ IDAHO. 



Agriculture, mining, and lumbering are the most important of 

 Idaho's permanent industries. Upon their continued prosperity 

 depends that of almost every other interest. Agriculture in at least 

 two-tliirds of Idaho means irrigation farming. Its relation to forest 

 protection is peculiarly intimate, because the great proportion of 

 cultivable land lies in an arid belt which, even more than in most arid 

 States, has an insufficient system of streams and reservoir sites to 

 draw upon. In many States the reclamation of desert land depends 

 upon canal projects, which, although expensive, are perfectly feasible 

 because there are large streams from which to draw. Southern Idaho 

 has few streams which have not already shown doubtful adequacy. 

 Not only is it extremely difficult to find any unimproved land which 

 has a satisfactory water right, but the old settled districts constantly 

 feel an increasing shortage. These are the conditions now : the future 

 will certainly bring more claimants, and unless something is done to 

 ])rotect the streams, it will bring a smaller supply of water to meet 

 the increasing demand. Eeservoir storage will help, but the Kecla- 

 mation Service asserts of practically every project it has in hand that 

 success depends upon sustained forest storage also. 



The following figures show the extent and importance of the inter- 

 ests dependent upon irrio-ation : 



According to the Twelfth Census (1900), the 602.568 acres of irri- 

 gated land in Idaho was 42.6 per cent of its total improved land. Of 

 the total number of farms, those irrigated constituted 52.6 per cent. 

 The value of all land in the irrigated farms was $21.850.135 ; the value 

 of the buildings thereon. $4,338.1:25. and the investment in canals and 

 ditches, $5.120.399 : making a capital represented by irrigation farm- 

 ing, exclusive of stock, implements, crops, etc., of $31,308,959. The 

 average of all irrigated land was $31.25 per acre, while that of the 

 best, suitable for growing fruit, ranges from $60 to $500 per acre. 

 The value of irrigated crops in 1899, the latest year for which figures 

 could be given, was $5,41:0.962. 



Xearly all of this land would be comparatively valueless without 

 irrigation, and with irrigation a similar value can be given a great 

 portion of the now valueless area of the State. In the decade between 

 1890 and 1900 irrigation increased the improved area in Idaho by 

 37.6 per cent, and added over $12,000,000 to its farming wealth. 

 Future development in greater proportion is limited not by available 

 land, but almost solely by available water supply, which can never be 

 ])rovided by reservoir storage unless assisted to the greatest possible 

 degree by forest storage. And the lands covered by the above statis- 

 tics lie almost wholly on streams rising in the proposed forest reserves 

 recommended by the Department of Agriculture. 



Hitherto, except in a few localities, the various destructive agencies 

 have not pushed back into the mountains far enough to denude the 

 watersheds and perceptibly affect the flow of the streams, therefore 

 the water users, while suffering from shortage already, have not 

 learned the lesson of forest protection through experiencing the dimi- 

 nution of supply which follows destruction of the forest. They 

 realize fully the obstacle to further development of arid lands, but 

 base their calculations on the present stream flow without considering 

 the even more serious possibility of the present supply being 

 diminished. It is for these reasons that the water-using classes of 



