Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1898-10-31

all pennsylvania dOO0u IOSoUucI, dhu
if YOU add them together their square
miles fall short of California. And
then all these newborn states of the
Union, North and South Dakota,
Washington, Montana, Idaho and Wy
oming Each state an empire in size.
"But," says some one, ''in calculat-
ing the immensely of our continental
acreage you must remember that vast
reaches OF our public domain are I'M
cultivated heaps OF dry sand, and the
Bad Lands OF Montana and the Great
American Desert" L am glad that you
mentioned that. Within twenty-five
years there will not be between the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts hundred
miles of land not reclaimed either by
farmers pillow or miners croWbar. BY
irrigation, the waters of the rivers and
the showers of Heaven, in what are
called the rainy season, will be gath
cred into great reservoirs, and through
aqueducts let down where and when
the people want them. Utah is an OBJ
iect lesson. Some parts Of that ter
ritory which were so barren that q
spear of grass could not have been
raised there in a hundred years, are
now rich as Lancaster county farms OF
New Jersey. Experiments have proved
that ten acres of ground irrigated
from waters gathered in great hyro-
logical basins will produce as much as
SO acres from the downpour of rain as
seen in our region. We have our
freshets and our drougths. AS you
take a pitcher and get it full of water,
and then set it on a table and take
drink out of it when you are thirsty
and never think of drinking a pitcher
full all at once, so Montana and Wyo-
ming and Idaho will catch the rains of
their rainy season and take up all the
waters OF their rivers in great pitchers
of reservoirs, and refresh their land
whenever they will.
The work has already been grandly
begun by the United States govern
ment Over 400 lakes have already
been officially taken possession of by
the nation for the great enterprise of
| irrigation. Rivers that have been roll
ing idly through these regions, doing
nothing OH their way to the sea, Will
be lassoed and corralled and penned
up until such time as the farmers need
| them. Under the same processes the
Ohio, the Mississippi, and all the 9TH
err rivers will be taught to behave
themselves better, and great basins
will be made to catch the surplus OF
waters in times of freshet, and keep
a. 10 i77.1-
eating process by which all the arid
lands between the Atlantic and Paci-
fic oceans are to be fortified is no
new experiment.
It has been going on successfully
hundreds of years in Spain, China, IN
India, in Russia, in Egypt. About
8OO,OOO,OO9 of people of the earth to-
day are kept alive on food raised on ir-
rigated land. And here we have al
lowed to lie waste, given up to rattle
snake and bat and prairie dog, lands
enough to support whole nations OF
industrious population. The work be-
gun will be contaminated. Here and
there exceptional lands may be stub
born and refuse to yield any wheat or
hoe fail to make an impression, the
miners pick-ax will discover the rea-
son for it, and bring mp from beneath
those unproductive surfaces coal and
iron and lead and copper and gold.
God speed the biologists and survey
ors, the engineers and the senatorial
commissions, and the capitalists and
the new settlers and the husbandmen,
who put their brain and hand and
heart to this TRANSPORTATION of the
American continent! STREAMS in the
deSert!"
But while [ speak of the immensely
of the continent, [ must remark it is
not an immensely of monotone or
tameness. The larger some countries
are, the worse for the world. This
| continent is not more remarkable for
| it's MAGNITUDE than for it's wonders of
construction. Yosemite and the ad-
| Joining California regions! Who that
has seen them can think of them with
out having his blood Jingle? Trees
now standing there were old when
Christ lived! These monarchs of
foliage Te1Pn0Q before A1GAduu6I, dIIO
the next 1000 years will not shatter
their scepter! They are the masts of
the continent, their canvas spread on
the winds, while the old ship bears on
its way through the ages!
That valley of the Yosemite is eight
miles long and a half mile wide, and
5000 feet deep. 1t seems as if it had
been the meaning. of Omnipotence to
crowd into as small place as possible
some of the most stupendous scenery
| of the world. Some Of the cliffs you
do not stop to measure BY feet, for
they are literally mile high. Steep so
that neither foot of man or beast ever
scaled them, they stand in everlasting
defiance. If Jehovah has a throne on
earth, these are it's white pillars!
Standing down in this great chasm of
the valley, you look up, and yonder is
Cathedral Rock, vast, gloomy, minister
built for the silent worship Of the