THE CALL OF THE WEST 



411 



fancy chickens. On the first of Novem- 

 ber he took an inventory for me and re- 

 ported oats yielding 62 bushels and wheat 

 30 bushels per acre. Potatoes and other 

 vegetables proved a good crop and fur- 

 nished enough to carry him through the 

 winter. The apple trees are flourishing, 

 and the outlook for small fruit is most 

 encouraging for 1909. This spring he 

 will plant 30 acres in sugar beets, and 

 he says he can net from $50 to $80 per 

 acre. 



Growing tired of the dangerous pro- 

 fession of locomotive engineer, Elmer 

 Eiker resigned and took up a farm at 

 Huntley, where he moved his family, 

 consisting of a wife and three daughters. 

 His capital was about $1,000. He only 

 cleared and cultivated 20 acres, planting 

 an assortment of wheat, oats, sweet corn, 

 potatoes, onions, squash, sugar beets, 

 watermelons, cantaloupes, and other veg- 

 etables. It was such a variety that I ac- 

 cused him of making a raid on some Con- 

 gressman's seed appropriation. Rather 

 remarkable to relate, he was successful 

 with nearly everything he put in the 

 ground. His oats threshed over 45 

 bushels; wheat, late planted, 18 bushels; 

 potatoes, 150 bushels ; onions, 300 bush- 

 els per acre ; from one-eighth of an 

 acre in cucumbers he sold more than $50 

 worth. Everything was grown on new 

 land never before touched by a plow. 

 Mr Eiker says any man with three 

 horses, a cow, a few chickens, and $500 

 in cash, combined with industry and com- 

 mon sense, can make good on one of these 

 40-acre farms. Several hundred farmers, 

 his neighbors, are doing it. The Hunt- 

 ley project now contains 300 new homes. 

 Its towns are growing. There are eight 

 graded or centralized country schools, 

 four church organizations, and a bank 

 with $50,000 in deposits. Two years 

 ago this country was a sage-brush desert 

 and uninhabited. Last year the first 

 crop was irrigated by water from the 

 new canal system. 



the; shoshone project, Wyoming 



Under the protecting shadows of a 

 lofty mountain range in northern Wyo- 

 ming there is a broad and fertile valley 



through which flows a strange and won- 

 derful river. In prehistoric days im- 

 mense geysers along the stream sent their 

 boiling waters high into the air. In the 

 river bed and on the banks great hot 

 springs burst forth, the waters possessing 

 qualities of healing and odors far-reach- 

 ing. The Indians, who oft renewed their 

 youth in them, called the stream Sho- 

 shone, or "stinking water" — an unfair 

 cognomen — for, save at the spring, the 

 river is as clear as a mountain brook 

 and its waters are good to drink. 



Unnumbered ages ago there was a 

 beautiful lake, a few miles above the val- 

 ley, fed by countless streams flowing 

 down from snowy peaks. Between it 

 and the valley a range of lofty moun- 

 tains intervened. When the lake topped 

 its banks the overflow, passing through 

 some cleft or crevice in the mountain 

 range, during centuries of time gradually 

 chiseled out a canyon eight miles long 

 and hundreds of feet in depth. When 

 the bottom of the canyon was cut below 

 that of the lake, its waters poured out and 

 passed through the gorge and the lake 

 bed was exposed. The entrance of that 

 gorge is only 60 feet wide on the bottom ; 

 300 feet above it is only 200 feet wide. 

 No irrigation engineer could view it with- 

 out wishing to lock it with a dam. It has 

 been waiting all these years for some one 

 daring enough and with capital enough 

 to block it up and restore once more the 

 beautiful lake that disappeared so long 

 ago. 



A BLOCK OF CONCRETE SEVERAL HUNDRED 

 EEET HIGH 



In 1 9 10 the lake will reappear, and 

 on its shores countless wild fowl will 

 build their nests. From the depths of 

 the shadowy canyon the world's highest 

 masonry dam is slowly rising, a solid 

 block of concrete, locking securely the 

 perpendicular cliffs of granite and thrust- 

 ing back the angrv floods of the turbulent 

 and torrential river. The work is im- 

 pressive ; it is also attended by many 

 dangers and calls for courage and daring 

 on the part of the men engaged upon it. 

 The scenery is magnificent, the canyon 

 justly ranking with other famous gorges 



