Lewiston evening teller. [volume] (Lewiston, Idaho) 1903-1911, 1903-12-21
HARVESTING THE FLOODS
Modern Irrigation Will Solve the Prob
lem of National Prosperity

Plenty of water is one of natures
greatest blessings, the key to success
full agriculture, and therefore to stable
national prosperity, says the Globe
Democrat The problem of floods is
one of control, not of a search, a quest
that would end at Sahara. A flood sud
denly coming out of the Kaw, minor
river, meeting high waters at other
points, caused lamentable loss Of life
and a destruction of property worth
not less than $3O,000,000, in addition to
widespread humap suffering and inter-
rupted business. The sea of water that
has been hurrying down the Missouri
and Mississippi during May and June
would be of untold value If it could
have been restrained and regulated
through July. August and September
In this connection comes in the i'm
mense significance of the new irriga-
ton movement in the United States.
Though restricted at the start to the
arid region, there can be no doubt that
eventually irrigated areas will be found
throughout the country. New England
has just passed through a six weeks
drought, and it's crops for the season
must suffer in proportion. What can
be done to hold back the surplus of rain
and melted snow to serve systematic,
useful purpose as we'll as to prevent
ruinous floods?
Government officials in charge of the
reclamation policy authorized by the
recent irrigation act passed by con-
gress are studying, among other things,
the subject of storage reservoirs at the
head waters of streams, as we'll as the
features of rain drainage lower down.
The secretary of the National Irrigation
association estimates that storage res
ervoirs far up on the Missouri and its
tributaries would reclaim 35.0OO,OOO
acres of socalled desert lands. Crops
can be made, with irrigation. by the
end of any August. At present they
would be drowned out in the spring
and burned up in the summer. Canals
and bitches. aggregating hundreds of
miles in length. could conduct off a
vast quantity of water now ravaging
it's borders in the turbulent main chan
nels. BY means of canals and bitches,
says the secretary, almost incalculable
quantities of flood waters could be
spread out ito irrigate millions of acres
of farming land in Wyoming Colorado,
Kansas Nebraskaand the Dakotas thus
reducing the flow of the lower reaches
of the Missouri to below the danger
point" The canals and bitches would
be a secondary restraint to the stor-
age reservoirs at headwaters.
Ground even still more advanced
along the same line is taken by the
New York Evening Post, which points
out that the configuration of the
sharply sloping plains from which the
late flood came is favorable to the i'm
pounding of vast quantities of water.
The Post remarks that this question OF
the control and utilization of the natu-
raj waters is now upon the country
and that the national irrigation bill is
but a beginning. 1t declares that the
, whole civilized world is giving more
, attention than ever before to the prob
lens of water storage and CONTROL
, and that sit is a question almost as
pressing for. New England and New
York and the Appalachian region as ii
is for the west" When such views
come from a conservative sorce on the
borders of the Atlantic. congress may
take up the subject of irrigation and
headwater reservoirs with an assur-
ance of the unanimous support of the
country. Levee systems are branch
, of the same methods of securing sure
, and bountiful crops. the foundation OF
the nations wealth. the first great nec-
essary condition of good times.