The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1909-07-07
THE IRRIGATION CONGRESS

THE IRRIGATION CONGRESS
In just a month the National Irri-
cation Congress win open in Spokane
and North Yakima should be strongly
represented at that meeting. Many
reasons why this locality needs repre-
sentation might be pointed out but
the one which outwcighs all of the
others is that at that congress he best
speakers, the highest authorities and
the best thinkers along the line OF
reclamation and irrigation and con
servation will be present and have
places on the program.
There will be a plethora 81 ideas
rampant there and no man who is in
terested in any one of these great
problems can afford to miss this OPP
portunity of getting into close touch
with the movement unless he is kept
away by conditions over which he
has no control. The congress t.;
brought almost to our very door and
the fare for the round trip is cut in
half.
The fact is that the Yakima Valley
is what it is because of irrigation
What the Yakima Valley may become
at a not very distant day is beyond
our ken. We do not know. neither
do we dare conjecture or hazard a
guess because the outlook is so opti-
mistic when all of our available lands
are under water. We dare not let our
selves believe what our reason tells
us will be true, if what is to come in
the future is semblance of what has
already come to pass. We know that
it may be true under the right sort
of development and therefore we have
a possibility and an opportunity pre-
sented
And yet the key to the whole pro-
gram lies in that word develop
ment." Our valley is not developed
| yet, it is hardly beyond the infancy
of development. We are specializing
in a few lines but what one of our
| specialists will dare claim that he has
solved the problems that confront
| him? Fruit buyers and commission
men are a unit in declaring that there
are very few of the fruit growers who
measure up to the highest standard
of excellence in the raising and pack
ing of their fruit. If that is true, then
|
are specializing and we need training.
1t is just such institutions as the
irrigation congress and the apple show
| that incite interest in the higher de-
velopment of communities and indus
tries, for it is there that enthusiasm
is drunk in and he need of higher
standards is realized.
| s.
At the irrigation congress a move
ment will be started to awaken a
country wide interest in irrigation and
allied movements. In other words,
! development movements are to be set
in motion on a national scale and in
tensified. Nothing could be of any
greater benefit to this valley than just
such a movement. With the reclama-
ton of our arid land subject to the
whims, the caprice and the fortunes
of political jugglery, we are not sure
when some two hundred thousand
acres of land tributary to us will be
watered. That it may be watered we
well know; that it must be watered
If our gres test possible growth is at
| tanned is certain. But at times it
seems as if nobody cared.
Ilu YOU ever SlOD u lnlnk what II
means to have this work of recama-
! ton delayed? Well, if it could be
| carried through to completion that
land would be developed at once and
placed under a high state of cutva-
ton. North Yakima would be the
very center of the whole community,
and at a conservative estimate her
population would attain the $4,000
mark unquestionably in possibly ten
years. What would that growth mean
| to your property values? Why they
would climb and climb in proportion
to that remarkable growth. There
| fore, the first and foremost interest
| of everyone in the Yakima Valley is
| to see that this growth is maintained
at the highest attainable rate. If that
is done every property holder in the
Yakima Valley will make money by
merely watching the hands of the
clock turn round.
1t appears, therefore. that the
Yakima Valley has a direct and vital
| interest in every movement that
makes for development. We want
! to know all that there is to know
| about irrigation. We want to know
what other sections are doing, and for
this purpose there is no more prac-
| teal way than to rub elbows with
men from all of these sections and
get imbued with a little of each 9TH