The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-02-02
IRRIGATION IN IDAHO.
What Can Be Accomplished By En-
terprise and perseverance,.

8
| In the southern part of Idaho, just
rorth of Snake river, there lies what
will yet prove to be the choicest farm
ing district in the state. There are 10.
600 acres in the tract, level or gently
undulating, and as beautiful a plain
as the eye could wish to rest upon
With the exception of a few farms
next the river, it is virgin soil. the
sage brush rising in places as tall as
a horse and rider.
For fifty years travellers leaving
Blackfoot for the mines in the west,
have wondered why it was still the
haunt of the jack rabbit and the covert
of the prairie chicken. In imagination
they have seen it dotted with farm
houses, and the dull monotonous
green of its unbroken sage forest
changed to the variegated hues Of field
and meadow. Why does it still lie IN
cultivated?
The problem was one of getting
water upon it. Surely this was not an
insurmountable obstacle, for Snake
river runs right through the valley-a
stream carrying more water than all
the rivers of Utah combined. Capital
was what was needed. Everybody
said so, and everybody for forty-hVe
years believed so, and waited. Capital
came-or rather speculators-and built
the canal on paper, time and again.
But still the jack rabbit fourished.
At length a number of Utah farmers,
sturdy sons of the earliest settlers who
had witnessed some of the marvels of
cooperation, came to look at the
country.
Eyes" said they, at requires capital,
but chiefly the kind which is repre-
sented by pioneer grit, and sun-tanned
muscles" and without making more
ado, they wrote to their friends, and
soon colony of log cabins rose among
the sagebrush.
1t was no light undertaking. The
canal had to be built fifteen miles be-
fore any land not taken could be
it would need to be forty miles long.
Undaunted, however, they set to work.
They did not build a little ten foot
canal which perhaps would have suf-
feed for their individual needs, but
began a channel sixty feet wide and
four feet deep. But first they incor-
porated under the laws Of Idaho, as
the Peoples Canal and Irrigating COM
pany, and advertised that they would
take 10000 inches of water from Snake
river. That was nearly two years ago
By March the canal will be finished for
twenty-five miles At this writing
eighty teams with scrapers are at
work, and every man is credited with
stock in the canal at 50 a day
AS before intimated, the company is
formed strictly on the cooperative
plan-the plan that has proved so wide
a blessing to the farmers of Utah.
Every man is a stakeholder to the ex-
tent Of his labor; and provision is made
that the future settler shall come in on
the same equitable terms It is esti-
mated that the cost Of watering an
acre will be about SO, and the owner
has a perpetual right, subject to no
other expense than the usual repairs.
/ drHds u homasteads have been
entered, but there is room for thous-
aAus yet. And this spring, the water
being available, it was expected that
there would be an unusual influx of set
tiers.
But note now what follows: A com
pany of spectators began a canal
year or two ago, parallel to the Peo-
pies and covering the same land
Patches here and there along the SUR
veyed route have been excavated,
in all to about two miles.
The reason for it's failure is not far to
seek. This was their proposition. They
would build the canal furnish farmers
water right at SO per acre which might
be paid by installments with interest,
and charge 81 an acre per year for ex-
penses, repairs, etc. Compared with
some canal speculations, this was very
fair and would no doubt have carried.
had not the settlers on their arrival, at
once Joined their interests with the
Peoples company.
Bafled in their plans, the specula-
tors stopped work last summer, and
have been trying since to get money to
1oat the scheme. Failing in this also,
they have at length worked a dodge
by means of the Carey land act, which
u 1t succeeds, will punish honest, plod-
ling industry and reward chicanery
Ind sharp-dealing in a way that will
make the senator from Wyoming, the
author of the act, open wide his eyes
n establishment.
The Carey act. 1t will be remember |
gives a million acres to each of the !
lrld states to aid in irrigation The |
and is to be sold at 80 cents an acre |
% actual settlers, and the money goes /
coward building the canal And 1t |
would seem that settlers are enjoined !
rom getting water from any other !
source than the one under which the |
and is sold.
At least such is the Interpretation
)ut upon the law by the SPECTATORS |
above referred to. Not 1.-THE of the |
5000 acres in the tract west of Black |
DOT has been filed upon Yet every |
DOT not filed upon is withdrawn from |
'ntry and held under the Carey act /
n favor Of these spectators canal |
scheme
And all the state officers concerned.
including the governor, the land com |
and the state attorney, have |
consented to this nefarious dealt What |
makes 1t more diabolical is the fact |
hat the scheme was consummated in !
he dark, no ONE knowing any thing |
bout it, till men were refused entry of |
and under the homestead laws.
] have used the word contaminated
I is perhaps premature to say so. for
he contract must be ratified at Wash
ngton, and thither the war is being
arried. The citizens of Blackfoot, and !
ndeed OF the whole country, united in |
oud protests against the infamy. Mon
ter petitions are being forwarded to
he land commissioner at WASHINGTON
0 stop It, To let it succeed will mean
nat the splendid canal now almost
nlshed shall not be Of service save to
ne comparatively few that have al
eady entered land, and it also means
hat the future settlers of this fertile
ract shall be subject to the merciIess
aXation OF a soulless corporation.
NATHAN WRENCE.
RvVr-