The Richfield recorder. (Richfield, Idaho) 1909-1931, 1910-12-02

Fl
down hill TO seek its lowest level;
given the law of paint growth
whereby fruits and grains and flow
ers grow under the proper condf
lions oil water, sunshine ami soil
given the soil, ready for the pillow
and the sower; and given the wa
ter to supply any deficiency OF
moisture to make growing condi-
tons right-and you can have an
ideal irrigation system, whether you
have but a single plant growing
in tin can, OF an empire watered
by a mighty canal So simple, so
easv the Omnipotent made all the
laws and the materials, and all you
need to do is to carry the water. 1t
is little thing to do-nature does
all the rest.
1t would seem that irrigation
would be almost as old, as we'll IN
derstood, as widely practiced, as any
other knowledge that marks
the progress of man above the
brute. Yet it has not always
tempted lazy humanity. The
arid lands have been the last
to be settled up and the last ten
years has seen more and better ir-
Iigation than all the previous five
thousand years in this world-old
practice. Not like the application
Of steam or electricity, which are
natural laws only now defined or
harnessed, for no new thing has
been learned in irrigation since the
desert swallowed up the vast fertile
irrigated fields of Babylon and AS
syria. But for all these ages the
knowledge clambered to waken and
break in mighty movement within
the memory Of children yet in
school.
It need hardly be restated that
this going back to the irrigation OF
the ancients. which in the last two
decades has brought such undream-
ed of marvels to Egypt and India,
the home of irrigation has found
more opportunity, has made more
growth in Idaho, than any where
else on earth 1t is a fact. like the
axioms of mathematics and to prove
it were wasted time. What it means.
and just where and how it is done
is more worth while.
In Idaho there is close to $4,000
600 acres of arid land, more or less
RO714b4C " N0tt4s Oil 4LOlE VI 1909
in need of irrigation. There are ir-
rigated fields 5000 feet above sea
level--higher than any mountain in
America east of the Missouri-fields
where only the hardest crops can
be grown, yet even here it pays,
and there are fields only 700 feet
above the sea where the sun shines
as a furnace, and the thirsty soil
~, L l.
from the canals like the Mighty
Thor drinking at the flagon of the
giants.
: Between these two extremes may
be found the 1 100000 acres of IT.
Tigable land; an empire with a /
range of products and conditions /
that could please almost any type |
On the high irrigated fields of the
Teton country, only the hardy grains
and grasses can stand the cold; on |
the lower Snake river, at Lewiston, |
almonds, peaches and almost ever
blooming roses grow in tropical pro-
fusion. Idaho irrigation is a vast
agricultural department store, where
one can find anything, everything
that the heart could wish.
A world-famous military leader,
more remarkable for his success
than for his grammar, said that mil
itary success meant to get thar
fustest with the mostest men.
That's what the irrigationist does
gets there first with the most fav-
orabe conditions Are the skies
brassy and dry? He can open a
headgate and let loose a flood OF
water for the parching plants. Does
the wind blow away the moisture
needed to make his crop grow and
mature? He can temper it like
magic by watering his fields He
can do more@he can ''get there
fustestt by establishing ideal con-
ditions, and they have the basic
forces of nature guarding his fields
with the laws that never change.
That is what irrigation means
to provide ideal, stable conditions
for crop raising. What could it
mean to Idaho to develope all her
fifteen million acres Of irrigable
lands to their ultimate production?
Tor ii is coming, that stage Of de-
velopment more rapidly than one
could dream
Take the apple crop of the ma
ton. There is million acres of
Idaho land where apples would
thrive, not all this land equally val
liable, perhaps, but all better than
the best of most other states. The
nation last year produced only about
$4,000 goo barrels of apples; half
bushel for every man, woman ana
child in America. There is not an
acre of this Idaho apple land that
would not produce at least thirty
barrels of apples yearly; some or
chards would, and do, produce ten
times as much Idaho could raise
thrice as many apples as all Ameri-
ca now uses, and bring health to the
fruit hungry millions to whom rosy
and gold fruit would be better than