Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1907-10-08
GOVERNMENT IRRIGATION.
In Nevada-And Its Market at
Nearby Mines.

In Nevada the United States
has constructed an irrigation sys-
tenn to carry water from the
Truckee and Carson rivers to
arid lands in the Carson Sink
Valley. This valley is situated
in Churchill county and is about
forty miles in diameter. The
elevation is 5000 to 1000 feet
above sea level, and the climate
THE best on earth, not even ex-
Rcepting the world renowned eli
mste of the Willamette Valley.
l is dry climate. From nc
inches to six inches is the annual
rainfall, and the writer has seen
there fourteen months of continu-
Gus sunshine, and never three
days without sunshine.
1t is A healthy country. Oc-
casionally some man gets drunk,
lays cut over night, and gets his
death of cold. That is the prin-
cipal cause of death, and that is
rare. The oldest man in the val
ley is "a years old and is called
the Nevada Boy"
The government canals have
been. built on permanent lines,
and the system is grand success.
Water can now be taken from
over 600 miles of bitches and at
any point in the irrigation district
at the nominal cost of 81. so an
acre, with an annual maintenance
tax of 40 cents an acre. In 10
years the water is fully paid for
and becomes perpetual water
right and appurtenant 70 the land.
1t has cost about four million
dollars to carry the water to this
arid and, and in so doing Uncle
Sam has given birth to new
empire. Every national irriga-
ton project, OF the proportions of
the Truckee-Carson project is
an empire within itself. 1t is
most cohesive community. Every
man within a project will fight to
the last drop for The entire pro-
|j-ct. For what concerns one
will be of consequence to all.
They all depend on the same
source of supply tor their water
which is the element, when in
telligently conserved and distri-
buted, more potential than con-
Quest, commerce, or even than
unlimited rainfall itself.
The Truckee-Carson project is
now settling up rapidly with a
desirable class of intelligent, in
dustrious and ambitious citizens,
the kind of men who first settled
this Western slope, and who have
produced such a wonderful trans
Formation within a few years OF
time. There are still many ex-
cellent homesteads vacant, and
the persons fortunate enough to
obtain them will within a few
years be independent. This has
been the history of all properly
conducted irrigation systems and
will be the result in Carson Sink
alley beyond question.
The Rev. G. w. Black, who
organized the Corvallis Baptist
CHURCH in 1880, will verify this
statement; he will obtain over
$7co from his alfalfa crop this
year, the second year of his irri-
CATION, and he has already be-
come independent on his 50 acre
homestead. J. w. Whip, who
i, n the early eighties carved stat
iary for Ira Miller in Corvallis,
will also bear me out in this. He
IS successful irrigationist near
Fallon. In the face of an unpre-
cedented food, which inundated
the upper Carson valley for miles,
and tested the strength ard de.
veloped all the weak places in
the Tfuckee. Carson system. with
damage of fifty thousand dollars,
the reclamation officers supplied
water to Carson Sink irrigation.
lists in time for a bountitul crop
this present year (Ioo7), and thi'
food came the middle of March
For this crop we get $40 a ton,
in the stack, for alfalfa, and each
acre yields from 2 to S tons and
some even more. The plain fac