Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1904-06-16


= communities benefited. To the Az
efage resident of fertile districts the
word is beginning TO have a familiar
sound perhaps, but few indeed have as
yet Deen aroused sufficiently to look
up the definition in the dictionary IN
say nothing of studying its possibilities
IN an encyclopedia. In the February
number of the World Today is a COM
pfehensive treatise of t.ie advantages
70 De derived through irrigation. under
me t-t4s c rs Ccne Uc-e of the
American Desert" from the nen of
Dan Allen Wiley. The article is su.
Perbly Illustrated, and gives a most
exhaustive conception of the POSSIBLE
ties CT scientific watering of arid
lands.
Among other things the author saws:
Inc United States government is
about to take up the greatest public
enterprise in the history of the conn.
Try, and work which is perhaps with
out parallel in the worlds history
II is to make fit for habitation what is
On empire IN itself, comprising large
area of what is popularity known as
arid America The work has really
begun, for the engineers who have
been over the reeion have made a re.
port OF the localities favorable for the
sreat reservoirs to be created II has
3een decided to begin the construction
Q i've CT them in the near future ana
the land in the vicinity of each las
been withdrawn from settlement until
the irrigation works to serve Il can he
completed.
me possibilities of irrigation in the
United States are so vast that they
can not be appreciated even after a
study of the statistics which are at
hand. 1t is fact that nc less than
4'o.ooo0Oo acres are comprised in the
ard district. This excludes 120. O00-
GOO acres Of woodland not sufficiently
irrigated to produce crops. Government
experts who have made thorough in
Yestigation in the west believe that
fully 100000, 000 acres can be placed
a the disposal of the farmer. although
at present only small portion of the
area serves any useful purpose, and
this is confined to ranges for cattle
IN the gra.n-aTowing regions compris-
ing Nebraska Kansas. the Dakotas
and Texas about $4,000 600 acres are
today ulproductive owing to the lack
OF sufficient moisture, despite the fact
that from this group of states is ship
ped very large proportion of our an
nual cro1 Of corn, wheat, and oats, to
say nothing of other products. A sig
nffcant fact is that the results in the
territory already watered by artificial
methods show that in some staplo an
Tore of the irrigated soil will produce
Tonrn than an acre in what are eener-
ally known as the more fertile regions.
s77ch as the farm lands Of illinois and
indiana. COMPARISON Of ten years
harvests shows that more wheat, rye,
and potatoes TO the acre could be
raised n the former arid REGIONS than
CT some of the farms east OF the Mis-
sissippi river.
ALTHOUGH less than 4 per cent OF the
ova;lahia area fo~ irrisation has thus
far been reached by the canal system,
the largest area served in single
state by irrigation is in Colorado,
whe-e nc less than rs per cent of the
lands in the state available for cult
vation depends upon the artificial
water supply. These farms aggregate
1.e25,0G0 acres.
An illustration of the quantity of ma
terial required for some of the large
distributing reservoirs is given in what
is known as the Fossil creek, which
supplies a portion Of the PoGdre val
ley in Colorado. It covers 105 acres
and was CONSTRUCTED to hold $50, 000,-
coo cubic feet of water The embank-
ment contains 100000 cubic yards OF
earth, while the rip rap work com
prises 10000 tons of stone. 1t is sup
piled by an inlet canal carrying 400
cubic feet per second, while the outlet
canal discharges GOO cubic feet per
second when the gates are entirely
open. Other large reservoirs in the hill
country intended for storage and dis
tribution are the MERGED in California.
created by the erection of dam sixty
feet high, which covers $50 acres; the
Sweetwater dam in the same state.
which is ninety feet high, confning
725 acres of wates; the Bear Valley
reservoir representing $3.50 acres, and
La Junta. on the Arkansas river, form
ing a reservoir covering 1000 acres
with a maximum depth of forty feet
All of these are masonry or rock-flled
dams
The Cache a la Poudre canal forms
striking illustration of engineering
skill. The head of the canal is located
in the canyon Of the north fork of the
river of the same name about twenty
seven miles north of Fort Collins, Col
orado. At this point a crib and stone
dam twenty feet high was placed
across the river bed. the water being
taken into the canal through gates. To