Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1890-05-06
DAKOTA'S ARTEslAN BASIN.
Experiments In ell-Boring to Be Made
Under Government S iperyision.

Under Government iperyision.
Typographical surveys intended to
show how far it is possible to reclaim
the arid belt of the West by irrigation
have been going on under Major Pow
ellis able direction for some time The
work, however, is still far from COM
pleted. 1t is now proposed to discontinue
1t temporarily and to divert the appro-
priation with which it has been carried
on to experiments in well-boring in
the famous artesian basin in Dakota.
1t is certainly of great Importance to
ascertain what this supposed subterra
mean current amounts to, and to what
extent its resources may be drawn upon
for the improvement of agricultural
lands in the two Dakotas. These States
are not in the arid belt, strictly speak
ing but they border on it and are af-
fected by its conditions. They are our
largest wheat-producing States-our
main dependence, indeed, for an abund
ance of the best crop. The chief agri-
cultural difficulty in Dakota lies not so
much in want of participation as in
its uncertainties. 1t can not be depend
ed on to come at the right moment and
in the right measure. Last summers
drouth is the cause of the suffering that
now obtains there. Until almost the
first of June there was every reason to
anticipate a crop as good as that of
1887.
Farming by irrigation is certainly the
scientific way of farming, and it would
be by no means surprising were history
to repeat itself by once combining the
worlds largest agricultural operations
to arid soil. In depth and fertility the
soil of our desert country is unequaled.
Its gently rolling stoneless expanse pos
sesses a capacity for production almost
incredible. When it is said for instance,
that less than thirteenth of the land
of the Dakotas has known the harrow's
touch, and that upon seven out OF ninety
six million acres a crop of thirty-hve
million bushels of corn, seventy million
of wheat, fifty million of oats, ten of
barley, five of fax and five of potatoes
has been raised, some faint idea may be
CLEANED of the possibilities.
If by using the waters of the Red
river on the east, the Missouri on the
along the valley of the James, such
command of the soil could be acquired
as would give it all the moisture it needs
wherever and whenever moisture is
needed, almost another world supply
of wheat could be grown right there in
North and South Dakota. We shall
hope that it will not be found necessary
to stop the surveys in Montana, Colo
RADIO and New Mexico for the sake of
Dakota, and yet the immense import
ance of testing that artesian basin is i'm
pressive. 1t certainly should be done,
and with the utmost care and thorough
ness, as soon as posssible.-N. y. Tri-
bune.
| Parents should be careful in chas-
Using their children and not switch
them onto the wrong track.-Glens Falls
Republican.
The man who is perpetually hest
tating as to which of two things he VIII
do seldom does either.-Winchester
County Record.
AS the tadpole develops into the
frog. so does the tattler soon become the
fulI-fedged and malicious slanderer.-
Ed R. Pritchard.
If it was half as easy to take advice
as it is to give it, the progress OF the
world would to-day be century IN ad-
vance of its present condition.
Extremes meet in almost every
thing; it is hard to tell whether the
statesman at the top of the world or
the plowman at the bottom, labors hard
est.-Franklin.
Much of the unwholesomeness o.
and impoverishing desire for excessive
ornamentation would pass away II 1t
wasn't constantly tempted BY art ana
If usefulness was the chief object OF sci
ence art and the manufactures.
Our expectations, our IDEALS our
homes and intentions in beginning lie
are generally all too low. Many ana
many one is only indifferently success
full in living strong life because al the
start the standard of what one ought &c
he and the belief in what one may be-
were set too low.-Cuthbert Hall