The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1904-09-15
To Harness the Missouri.

To Harness the Missouri.
What May be Done by Irrigation in North
Dakota.
MINoT, N. D., Sept. -, 1904. Twenty
five years ago, Major J. W. Powell, the
greatest American authority on irriga-
ton, told the people of North Dakota,
at their constitutional convention, some
plain facts about this semi-arid section
which they were then 10th to believe,
but which have since proven only too
true. He told them that in the western
portion of the State they would have to
depend upon irrigation and that in the
eastern part they could grow good crops
with natural rainfall; but that in the
middle portion an entire dependence
upon rainfall must ultimately bring dis
aster; that they would have series of
years when there would be abundant
crops; and then for a number of years
there would be scant rainfall, when
crops would fail and disaster and dis
couragement would overtake thousands
of people. Up and down the tempera-
ture of agriculture would rise and fall
with the seasons-the lean years and
the fat. "You WILL" he said, "hug to
yourselves the delusion that the climate
is changing. This question is 1000 years
old. Nothing that man can do will
change the climate. There is almost
enough rainfall, but one year and an
other you need little more than you
get. 1t is flowing past you in your
rivers"
These words seem truly prophetic as
the history of the Dakotas is reviewed
back 25 years. The lean years came
and the fat years-the years when there
was plenty of rain and the soil produced
abundantly, and the cycles of lean years
came, when the farmers watched in
vain for the fructifying rainfall and
their crops burned to brown and a
crisp; and finally they abandoned their
homes by hundreds and by thousands.
For three years in succession during
that period, | was told, land which be-
fore and since yielded 20 bushels of
wheat per acre, produced but two poor
bushels, while thousands of acres were
never even harvested.
A WASTE OF WEALTH.
And the wealth of an empire is going
by in the rivers, as Major Powell stated
flowing uselessly to the ocean. That
is apparent enough to anyone visiting
the country. How to get the water onto
the land is the question. For the very
reason that dry farming may succeed.
but little interest has been taken in irri-
cation. But the farmers of North Da-
kota are awakening. They are realizing
that it is false pride which proclaims
that irrigation is not needed, for with
irrigation they will have safe and sure
The business men, too, are beginning to
see that small farms intensively cult
waited and made to produce the maxi
mum yield, contribute much more to
the growth and upbuilding of the State
than do large ranches, half farmed, or
wild hay land.
THE FORCEFUL MISSOURI.
A certain Western Senator, in cloak
room conversation on irrigation last
winter, stated it as his belief that the
Missouri river could be damned at vari-
Gus points and all its flood waters saved
for irrigation. This statement was from
the far, far West, where all things are
easily possible. The Missouri is vast
yellow giant. 1t flows through North
Dakota, even in low water time, tt
tanic mill-race, in which strong SWIM
mer may perhaps trust himself, and be
swept down stream as fast as a man
can run. In flood, when the Rocky
Mountain SHOWS are melting, it is the
embodiment of power, if not destruc-
WILL eOooll1S loo ooW ANilC ~ ON CCpo
before it millions of tons of earth, cut
ting out new channels and building up
new land miles and miles in extent.
Some day it may be possible to put in
great dam couple of miles wide at
one or two points where the river is
confined between high sandstone bluffs;
but this would be work which, while
it would create great empire of its
own, would make the Nile dam, with
its 25 millions of cost, sink into COM
parative insignificance.
WHAT CAN BE DONE TODAY.
But there are other means of making
the Missouri contribute to American
prosperity. Your correspondent was
fortunate enough to take trip of some
hundred miles up the river on a steam
er, piloted by the last of the old-time
l.: 30: g.