The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-07-12
BLOOM COSTS
MANY MILLIONS
SAB, 1000 More to
Be Invested In Next
Four Years

important place it occupies as a na-
tional body, President Taft. Director
Newell of the reclamation service.
many of the presidents cabinet officers
and others of national importance will
appear on the speakers platform. The
Chicago congress will be the first one
to have the president as its guest.
Work OF the organization for the
year is to be directed by 100 men OF
Chicago, and this list, which COM
prises the board of control for the
year, contains the names of many mep
who represent the highest rank in Illi-
nois civic, professional, commercial
and railway attainment. The sessions
probably will be held in the Auditorl-
um, Orchestral hall and other down
town meeting places, it being neces-
sary to provide several auditoriums for
the Chicago meeting. The congress
the sessions are to be held during the
week of the United States Land and
Irrigation exposition, during the Inter
national Live Stock exposition and
while the Chicago grand opera season
is at its height.
The United States reclamation act
made it possible for the department
of the interior to set aside the receipts
from the sale of public lands in certain
western states and territories as a fund
for the reclamation of arid lands. The
original fund employed for this work,
it was shown, was to become a revolv-
ing one, permitting of further eXpan-
sion year by year as the work contin-
ued, with the returns from the invest
ment such that the original fund would
be in the treasury ready for further
service after the first ten years of set
tlement, If not before.
By the terms of the act the lands re-
claimed by the government can be ac-
quired only by actual settlers after
residence and cultivation for a period
of FIVE years and on payment in not
more than ten annual installments
without interest of their share in the
cost of creating the irrigation system.
This water cost amounts In major
ity of the projects to $50 per acre. At
that cost, then, the settler is required
to pay So on each acre per year for ten
years. That is the return the govern
ment asks-just what it costs to pro-
vide the lands, or the water, rather,
which makes the lands susceptible of
farming. The farm unit Is 40, 80 or
100 acres, although in few, If any, Of
the projects can 160 acres still be
/ hOmesteaded. There are lands open to
entry now in five Of the projects. AS
additional funds are put into the work
additional units of 10000 acres or more
will be thrown open to entry from time
to time in the projects that are now in
complete, and when all the projects
are full additional ones will be started.
Some Available Lands Left.
The projects with farms now availa-
BILE include the Huntley, in Montana,
with 10000 acres, for which lands the
settler must pay 81 per acre to the In
dams at the time he makes his filing;
the Sun River, in Montana, with 276,-
600 acres, and in which the settler
makes an initial payment of $3.50 per
acre; the Umatilla, In Oregon. with 90
40 acres, the lands being in private
ownership and purchasable from set
| tiers having an excess of 160 acres;
the Belle Fourche, in South Dakota,
with 100000 acres, also privately own
ed lands, purchasable at from $50 to
$50 per acre, and the Shoshone, in wy
oming, with 10000 acres. all subject
to homestead entry, this project hav.
| ing a general elevation Of 4,500 feet.
In these projects the charge for water
right, which becomes perpetual when
the tenth annual payment is made, is
$50 per acre, excepting in the Umatil-
la and the Shoshone, in which 1t Is
$50 and SAG respectively.
While the reclamation Of the land is.
of course, the more essential feature
of the governments work. the engi-
neering accomplishments associated
with some of the projects are so re-
markable that they assume first i'm
portance in the general scheme Of the
project as whole. On one OF the
projects, the Shoshone. the highest
dam in the world has been construct
ed. Beside this dam the tallest sky
scraper in Chicago would be found
wanting in height. Placed in a mar
row gulch, the structure rises 32S feet
above the bed Of the river, and in the
construction of the plug 5000 cubic
yards of concrete were employed. The
water thus impounded is again divert
ed sixteen miles below the dam into
canals which supply the irrigable
lands in the Shoshone project. Hun
dreds of homesteaders are here profit
ing from water which formerly went
to waste.
OF ali the sagebrush states of the
west Nevada held for years without
doubt the first rank. And yet this
state, the government has found, con-