The Portland daily press., 1891-12-17

ruddy complexion. He weighs, I sup
pose, about two hundred and fifty
pounds, and looks strong enough to fell
bullock with one blow of his fist.
''Come early!' was the tip / had re.
ceived regarding my visit to the secre.
tary. Mr.. Ruslz himself is nothing il
not prompt. He is uniformly the first
to appear at the cabinet meetings; and
when on one occasion he happened to
be late, and they joked him on beng
1.-THE Tail of the Cabinet''-"You may
have your joke, gentlemen" quoth the
stalwart secretary, "but it is the tail
that keeps the flies off the rest of us!"
Mr.. Rusk is at his desk long before
business hours begin for the rest of the
department. "And when / get to work
ing here" said he to me, 81 sometimes
forget when lunch time comes, and don't
get anything to eat" Mr.. Rusk looks
as if he might eat a very solid luncheon,
and yet he is anything but hungry
looking man.
''Mr. Rusk," said I, very seriously,
''what is the attitude of the department
of agriculture on the subject of rain
making?"
The secretary regarded me steadily,
and then his eyes began to twinkle. II
got telegram yesterday" said he; sit
read: Please send us a rain-maker.' 1
answered: we have no rain-malxer to
send you. You will have to look to a
higher source. There was an appropri-
alton of 81, 900 to make rain, but it Is
exhausted But they had me believing
in the theory at one time" added the
secretary, with a chuckle. There
came up a report of an experiment that
had been made down in the southwest
somewhere, and it said that they made
their explosion, and it rained cats and
dogs. But then came scientific man
who had been present, and he said it
didn't rain drop. I told him that
couldn't be, for had letter from
cowboy who was on the spot, and that
/ was confident that cowboy well
knew when it rained. On being con-
fronted with the cowboys statement,
my scientist said the reason he had said
it hadn't rained was because he hadn't
had his rain-gauge with him. And it
turned out that not only did it actually
rain, but that the weather bureau had
foretold rain three days previous, and
the rain-rnalkers had been barely in time
to get off their explosion before it came
down"
'Then what is your final conclusion
on the subject?" inquired.
Mr.. Rusk looked out of the window.
The wind was west, the air dry, the sky
h1p,a nd ~ oil 10 n
couldn't make it rain out there to-day"
said he, "if they used up all the ex-
plosives in Washington" So we are
lief to infer that rain-malzing is not yet
regarded by the department as an es-
tablished scientific fact.
What about Salton lal1e?" I then
asked, for / was interested in the irri-
cation of the Great American desert
sis the water from the Colorado or is it
from underground"
This opened up the whole subject of
irrigation. The secretary was inclined
20 the belief that the Salton lake water
was from a subterranean source twas
not sea water at all events; whatever
Salton might attach to it was derived
from the soil. The investigation car
ried on by the department as to artesian
well water had demonstrated that vast
artesian reservoirs exist, from the Cam
ada border in the north to that of Mex
leo in the south. Submerged dams for
storing and enticing the undernow
waters have been successfully oper-
ated. The connecting area of this I'M
foreground flow, which moves at only
moderate depth below the surface, is
vastly greater in some parts of the
country than the true artesian 6ow. sin
one way or another, there Is no ques-
ton as to what irrigation is doing"
added Mr. Rusk. Ten years ago they
were saying that not l1,000,0 900 acres Of
arabic land remained east of the Tooth
meridian, to-day, over 100000 acres
have been taken up FOR farming Values
of arid lands have increased from 100 to
800 per cent. Our investigation did
great deal in very short while. but