Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1907-11-22

grasses give it a most cheerful air
in spring and early summer Dur
ing July and August, the hot wea-
Their, the bright sunlight and lack
of heavy showers, cause vegetation
to dry up unless it is rooted deep.
This describes the climatic condf-
lions of the great plain or valley
from the borders of The Yellowstone
Park to the new oil wells in western
Idaho where the great valley mar
rows to canyon, the highest de-
gree Of temperature being found In
the west, and ranging cooler to-
wards the head of the valley.
In this territory are included all
the great reclamation projects In
Idaho, the state having the most
water, the most land and the great
est irrigation projects of the semi
arid states.
The reservation mentioned above,
has also come within the scope of
the reclamation idea, and s35O,00o
appropriated by congress is at the
! disposal of the engineers for build
ing a great storage reservoir in a
natural basin in the mountains, and
/ canals to conduct the water out to
the fertile lands lying west of The
Blackfoot River, between Blackfoot
and Pocatello. Work is in pro-
gress on this enterprise and will be
pushed to completion.
What irrigation fails to do or is
too slow to do for the semi-arid
plains, individual settlers and pri-
vate capital are doing by means of
dry-farming, it having been deter
mined by practical tests, that the
whole face of the country would
yield profitable crops if cultivated
according to the best known meth
DDS of summer follow, and the pre-
diction Of men who until recently
were considered dreamers, that The
Snake River Valley, including the
great plains would one day be
a densely populated district, the
center of the great Northwest con-
tanning the best that has been devel-
we'd from The Caucasian Race,
seems actually coming to pass.
Evidence of this is seen in the
great slices of territory that are be-
ing reclaimed by the pluck of men
from all over the nation. bringing
not only capital, but the best known
of construction and irriga-
lion the world affords today. When
he Omaha Trade Excursion visited
Idaho last summer, Mr.. Carpenter,
he manager of the great Carpenter
Paper Company of Omaha, after list
sning a few moments to a Blackfoot
mans description of the surround
ng country, exclaimed, why I am
every time I get off the
rain. You Idaho men speak of
Lcres just like the New Workers
peak of dollars. Fifty thousand
ores; eighty thousand acres; seven
y thousand acres; two hundred
orty thousand; half a million acres
nd so on. Every county out here
as more in it than 1 supposed was
4 the whole country, and every man
re meet is teaching the idea of
uilding homes and empires. I see
ow what General Booth has been
rying to tell us about settling up
he west with the people from the
ongested cities in the east He
allied it putting the landless man
n the manless land"
And so it is with all southern
daho, the magnificent distances
lade up of fertile acres and tre-
lendous water courses, seem to the
ocal man to be too great to ever be
tilted, and only the man who
nows of the teeming millions of
ne east, DESTROYS of some place TO
o where they can have the wealth
nature, can form any adequate
lea of the tremendous development
/ store for Idaho. when these two
ements meet.
Until the past few years it was
enerally understood that it was
most impossible to sink wells and
btain water for domestic purposes
4 the great plains. but experiments
itn boring machinery have shown