El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-03-26
IRRIGATION
In SIBERIA
Unique Reservoirs That Will
Not Hold Water
BUT THEY STORE II
In A Frozen State And Let the Sun
Release 1t When Its Rays Begin
To Beat Down In the Spring.

Special Cores pondence OF the heralo
WASHINGTON, March 22-The agri-
cultural possibilities Of Siberia are vast
and but indifferently understood. The
Punishment of Russian political pri-
has created the impression that all ST.
IBERIA is frlgid and incapable of agri-
cultural development. There are in
the cars Asiatic dominion, millions
of acres of fertile lands splendidly
adapted to the growth of grains, and
large areas are even now being farmed.
Siberia, however, is q vast country and
in many sections which have shown
some agricultural development the
winters are long and cold while the
summers on the other hand are very
warm and dry. Many of the small
streams which are used for irrigation,
dry up during this season, the ground
bakes and agriculture suffers much.
To remedy this evil the farmers of GER
tain districts construct each year stor-
age reservoirs. and in the summers use
the contents, reservoirs and all, for the
support of their crops. They do it in
this manner:
During the winter they collect great
drifts of snow in the bottoms of
deep, shaded, valleys, rolling it down
the sides in immense snow balls and
there pressing and compacting It so that
It will be the more resistant to thawing.
At the end of the winter they cover the
enormous piles thus formed, with straw,
branches, or trash, in order to protect
the snow against the suns heat. All
during the spring this mass of snow
melts a little during the days but freezes
at night until it becomes q great solid
cake of ice. Then, when the temperature
rises to summer heat the streams begin
to dry up from lack of rain, this snow
means of ditch leading from it, the
water which runs down supplies the
river until the recurrence of rainfall.
How much land there is in our own
west, lying adjacent to splendid re-
servoir sites, yet arid for the want of a
policy TO construct the necessary dams
and store up the waste waters which
III
of farms
BUSY RIVER.
The Scientific American remarks |
upon II multiple duties of the Santa |
Ana river il California. This stream,
which flows out of the San Bernardino |
is now used to transmit |
power TO Los Angeles some eighty
two miles distant. Nine Thousand |
horse power is consumed in propelling |
machinery, moving street cars and in
heating aud illuminating the buildings
In Los Angeles, besides furnishing
power for several nearby villages.
After being used to generate power.
the mountain stream is gathered into
a conduit and led further down to
irrigate the hundreds of orchards and
RECLAIM THE DESERT.
The building of jetties and the
throwing up of high banks along the
are not more strictly within
The scope and province of the national
government than is q comprehensive
system of water storage for the west.
And the former are not SO far-reaching
,r so sure in their beneficial results,
or the building of levees is only a
,allistive measure against floods, where
Is the building of great storage
e servoirs at the head waters of the
'ivers, would, according to official
'ngin eering reports, prevent the
loods. Then during the growing season,
he water could be drawn off for the
irrigation of millions of acres, Such ,
,e the steady, systematic work of q
PRACTICAL government for the next :
quarter of a century, until every t
valuable acre of the desert shall have ]
'een reclaimed into fertile fields. IL
IRRIG ALTON AND MANUFACTURING.
Many of the manufacturers of the
ountry are awakening to the fact that
ational irrigation is a subject in {
Thich they are very directly interes-
I'D. The problem is not an intricate {
ne. Every merchant Is looking for G
ew accessible markets in which to
xploit his goods. If irrigation shalI
eclaim ten or twenty or a hundred !,
1illion acres of fertile land in the .
rest and people it with as dense q a
opulation as exists in the east, it does t
OF take any remarkable business
cumen to see how the manufacturer
rofits thereby. +
It is on the treeless plains that the :
sitter appreciates at its true value the 7
rasenca of tree growth and realizes b