The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-28
NATIONAL IRRIGATION
 CONGRESS- ARRANGED The Great Valley of Cali fornia the Source of
 Entertainment. A ASTUPENDOUS PROJECT The Ultimate Reclamation of Ten Millions Acres
 Promised.
A STUPENDOUs PROJECT

1OAAAL0Vus
 The Fifteenth National Irrigation congress will convene in the center of what Is probably the greatest single irrigable area on the Ameri- can continent, and certainly the greatest irrigation project that the National Reclamation Service has considered since Its organization. This is the great Interior Valley of California, the valley of the Sacra- mento and of the San Joaquin. It Is five hundred miles in length and comprises approximately ten mill lion acres, an area so vast that even in their widest enthusiasm and the reclamation service office have had TO thought of more than a mere beginning, at least for the present.
 The National Reclamation Service is now building twenty-five projects, that when completed, will irrigate 3,19S,000 acres. These projects will cost sixty million dollars, and will provide farms for 15O, ,O0O farm CTS. Measured by existing standards these twenty-five projects will main tain in comfort and plenty com bined rural and urban population of 10000 or one-fortieth of the en- tire present population of the United States.
 The building of these projects means the addition of vast area to the cultivated lands and provision for a vast increase in the population of the United States. So great is this prospective addition that it is a matter of immense importance to all the people of the whole United States, for 1t means large increase in the agricultural production upon which the maintenance of our pres ent prosperity so largely depends. It means new and greater opportuni- ties for those who seek lands and homes, and new avenues of trade and commerce. The importance of the addition of such an area devoted to the most intensive form of agri- culture can hardly be overestimated and yet the total combined area of all these projects is less than one-third that of Californias great valley.
 California's Valley extends in 2 northerly and southerly direction from the thirty-f1fth to the forty. first parallel of latitude. Were fl possible to transfer 1t to the same latitude on the eastern coast of the continent it would include the City of New York on the north and extend southward to Cape Hatteras on the coast of North Carolina, ant include within its boundaries the city of New York, Brooklyn, Phila- delphia, Baltimore, Washington Richmond, Norfolk and Raleigh.
 This great valley enclosed by steep and rugged though forest-cov cred mountains, presents a great opportunity for irrigation develop. ment on a colossal scale. The water supply is ample, but little of it i' used for irrigation because this has been the land of the princely whea farms for which California is famous, and the development of In tensive farming systems has only lately begun. Within the past few years several irrigation canals have been constructed and now it is pro. posed by the engineers of tht National Reclamation Service tc construct a mammoth system ol engineering works by which the whole of this splendid prairie may in time be converted into land o little farms supporting grea population.
 Plans for such project have beer partly worked out, but are still in. complete. For nearly ten years the United States Geological Survey and later the National Reclamation Service, have been making surveys and Investigations in this valley and the contiguous watershed. Stream. have been measured, topographi, cal survey of the valley floor begun the underground waters studied Mountain valleys suitable for stor. age reservoirs have been sought ou' and measured. for the summers art IAehlllACSS III SdliLSt hleb riANt LllO " III ter flow must be held back by grea . dams. Fortunately Nature has beer liberal in providing natural storage basins, and investigations, so far a. they have proceeded indicate tha every available irrigable acre mal ' be supplied with water, One reser voir site on the Pit River, the prin oI, AslG nP kn has a possible capacity of 5000, 900 acre feet, enough to cover ont foot deep every acre of the twenty five great Irrigation projects nov being built by Uncle Sam,
 The construction of the reservoir, necessary to increase the irrigation of the millions of acres of dry land' in this valley will, it is asserted practically effect the reclamation o the million acres of swamp-lands 1T the delta of the Sacramento and Sar Joaquin river. The drainage prob Hem is scarcely second to the irriga 1 ton problem in this basin, and it i complicated by the presence in tht rivers of vast quantities of debri , washed down from the gold mine of the adjacent mountains during the period when hydraulic mining was unrestricted.
 There is no thought of building this great project with the presen National eclamation Fund. Tn most that can be done is to make { beginning, which is being done a Orland on the west side of the Sac ramento velley; the sum of $650,