Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1889-08-01
THE SENATE COMMITTEE.
To be Invited to Consider DaEota's
Greatest Necessity. s..

10 ne invited 10 SOIstuCi hak>oIo .
Greatest Necessity.
The senate committeeman who are to
study the problem Of lrrigrating and re-
claiming western lands vii lhave the Da-
kota situation placed before them ere they
return to Washington. LaMoure county
commissioners have appointed three well
known citizens of that county to lay the
matter Of irrigatlng prairie lands by ar
teslan water supply before this com
mittee of the Senate, and the LaMoure
committee is in hopes of enlistlng other
counties to cooperate with it IN
bringing this matter before our United
States senators. They hope to induce
them to visit Dakota and make a careful
investigation of the questions involved.
The committee consists OF Senator
Stewart, chairman, and Messrs. Allison,
Plumb, Hiscock, German, Reagan, and
Jones, of Arkansas. Maj. Powell, the
director of the geological survey, will
meet the senators at st. Paul and will
probably accompany them. They expect
to reach st. Paul during this present
week. Hon. Waldo NJ. Potter has gone
to st. Paul to meet the congressional
committee. The Huron chairman tele-
graphed him Monday morning that the
committee would be IN Fargo today. He
does not believe however, they will reach
there until Wednesday morning. They
will probably spend the day there then.
The Aberdeen News gives the following
as an opinion of Brown county farmer
who has lately visited Arizona, southern
| California, Utah and other western
states where irrigation is extensively
and proitab]y established. In those
sections where he passed through. the
water supply comes largely. OF course,
from rivers and mountain streams, but
on many occasions he had opportunity
| to inspect large tracts OF land which We're
supplied by artesian wells alone, and
! which were practically deserts before re-
I claimed by means o. the moisture drawn
from the bowels of the earth. At River
side, Cal, he found the main supply came
FROM the wells and the Gage system OF
water works. and here the results had
been simply magnificent. In his opinion
the success of the system in Dakota IS
hardly matter for speculation, but IS as
good as assured from the very start. 10
| be sure, the best results might not be OBJ
tanned at the outset, for it req ulres skill
and experience to successfully lrrlgate
the land and regulate the supply Of wa
ter so that it is just sufficient for the
crops and no more or no less. The ditch
ing, of course, is attended with some ex-
pense, but he believes the loss OF one
! good crop would amount tonomore than
| the cost.
Practical engineers consulted with re-
ference to this work in Dakota said their
plan would be to sink TIE well at the
highest point on the land sought to be
irrigated. Here large basin is formed,
the water in which will be several feet
deep. From this the bitches may ex-
tend, following the elevations and rises
in all their various crooks and turns and
SO placed that the water may be run
from either side onto the tracts devoted
to crops. Temporary dams can be put
| in and the water handled with practl-
cally the greatest of ease and conven-
lenCe.