The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-09-04
HALF OF THE UNION
MANY STATES REPRESENTED AT
 IRRIGATION CONGRESS.
Vice-President Fairbanks Makes Speech Reviewing the Work AccOmp- lished, and PrOphesying the
 Good Which Will
 He Done.

Boise. Idaho. Sept 3.-More than | 1000 delegates representing half of | the States of the Union were present l today when the National Irrigation Congress assembled for it's fourteenth annual session. Vice-President Fair
 banks received a hearty welcome. the audience standing and applauding for fully a minlEe. The Congress was
 reused to applause when Governor Gooding, in his welcoming address. re- ferred to President Roosevelt. He sad at st. Anthony, Idaho, Pres ident Roosevelt made his first promise
 to the West to give his support to the movement for the enactment of na- tional reclamation law. The great ir- rigation works in Idaho now nearing completion, he said, were the fruition
 of promises made by President Roose- welt.
 United States Senator Fred T. Du- Bois of Idaho voiced Idaho's welcome to Vice. President Fairbanks and when 1 he touched upon national politics, re- ferring to the Vice President as a possible Presidential candidate, the con vention responded with the heartiest applause Senator DuBois declared that if it should transpire that the Vice. President should lead the party of which he is a distinguished member and if fate should decree that he be
 the next President--the people of Idaho
 would feel assured that they had a
 most ardent supporter in the Presi-
 dential office, for the Vice. President
 said Senator DuBois, had been one of
 the most consistent advocates of the Legislation for the reclamation of the arid regions.
 Clifford H. Pinchct of Washington. Chief of the Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture, who was announced as the bearer of a letter of greeting to the Congress from Pres ident Roosevelt. was introduced. MT. Plnchot stated that he appeared mere ly as the Presidents messenger boy. President Roosevelts letter was read.
 As soon as the applause which fol- lowed the reading of the Presidents letter mad subsided, Vice President Fairbanks was introduced. The dele gates arose and it was several minutes before the President could be heard. He said in part:
 When the government completes the irrigation work now undertaken and in contemplation. it will render available nearly 6.300.000 acres at a cost of a little more than $2oO,000.- 900.
 ITO prosecute the work it has under taken, the government will have in hand nearly $41.500,000 in 1908, an amount sufficient to cover the first unit of cost of projects authorized, and for thereafter prosecuting the work 1t will have the proceeds derived from the future sales of the public domain and the return from the land heretofore irrigated.
 While we are concerned particular ly with the extension of the irrigation service into the arid and semi-arid regions, l believe in time it will be largely increased in many other por- tions of the country. The waters in many of our rivers and streams. out side of the arid and semi arid areas, will be raised and spread over many sections where the rainfall Is un- certain, and where certain crops are destroyed occasionally or reduced in yield in consequence. We can see the limit of our arabic areas, but we can not see the limit of the demand of our increasing population, nor the extent of the demand of millions in foreign countries for American food supplies.
 "one of the great practical questions in inc future will be how to increase and conserve the productive power or .our agricultural regions. Scientific IT. rigation on broad lines will be fac for or increasing future importance In most of the states and territories or the union. the interests or lfrlBdtioH' put tHo4 Is a correlated subject which IS Wor- inv of consideration and that is-how shall we reinforce and maintain at us highest efficiency the productive power of the soil? Farming Is fast becoming a science and the most successful Iar- mer is the one who understands chem istry of the soil and products for which if is best suited. We are making mar vicious progress in every department sS o,,r dounestic economy and nowhere is our advancement more marked than .e e = .--aat eInlA nR agricmlture.-