Evening star., 1912-11-17

six miles thick, excAYattnE q tunnel one
5000 feet deep. and the other al the up
per end OF broad and fertile valley.
| September %. 1909. President Taft pre-
sided at the formal ceremony which
opened this great project. He placed q
gold bell on q silver plate and the cleo
tric connection released the pent-up floods
Of the Gunnison and its waters. passing
| through the mountain. flowed out upon the
Uncompahgre valley to fructify thirsty
desert. The tunnel Is lined with cement.
miles. The irdgabIe area Of the IN
compahgre valley 10 10000 acres. Of
! which 5000 acres were public at the be-
The Grand valley project consists OF
making irrigable 5000 acres, Of which
$4,000 are public. To bring this about
means the construction Of diversion
$50. feet long. 1t also means building
seventy-one miles of canals and 1900
feet of tunnels.
The work done in Idaho is best describ-
ed by G. j. Blanchard, the sta atistician of
the reclamation service.
I'm the spring Of 1904" said Mr.. Blanch-
ard, Il camped for the night on the
banks Of Snake river. Ida
| Idaho no. My companion, the en-
49,, gineer, confided to me his
plans for a great work IN
this section which was to create In the
desert q garden covering twenty-five
square miles. He drew his plans roughly
in the sand as we sat by the campfire.
| Here he said. I shall build a dam to
turn the waters into huge canals on
either side.' When l returned another
year the dam was finished. Pointing to
landscape Of desolauon, whose outer
ends touched the sky. and ON which there
was no sign of habitation. he said: This
desert will one day become a show place
porting in comfort a thousand families.
! had before, / realized that the engineers s
dreams had come true. Look where l
could in any direction / saw no desert.
Cultivated fields, with harvests ready for
40 and so acres children playing In the
sunshine. sturdy and happy; the garden
crops being gathered for winter storage,
gave abundant evidence that the soil
was productive and. when watered, gave
generous rewards to the farmer. Twenty
two handred families are living there to-
day, when only short time ago there
was no sign of human life Four pros
porous towns, soon to be cities. have
Is transformation to make you rub
your eyes with wonder and amazement .
The LARGEST project Is at Yakima, in the
state OF Washington. A number Of lakes
! have been acquired by the service and
are being used as storage reservoirs to
supplement the stream flow The land
| being irrigated lies in the Yakima valley,
on the eastern side of the Cascade noun
| talns. one interesting feature of the
work was the construction Of the Tieton
canal, which for several miles hugs the
edge Of precipice several hundred feet
above the river.
This is cement-lined ditch, and the
placing Of the lining was a particularly
difncult task. Cement forms
udIU made in the valley near the
| To.L stream were carried I'D the
| steep canyon side on cable
| ways, or by means Of cars, and then set
| in place. More than two miles Of the
canal is in tunnel. In the Yakima river
| concrete dam has been built which di-
| verts the water into the Sunnyside canal
and frrigates 1900 acres, but it will
ultimately supply $4,000. This valley
probably contains some Of the most valu-
able agricultural and fruit lands in the
| world. It is a region Of small farms in
! tensively cultivated. crop census of
the lands irrigated by the Sunnyside
canal In 1903 showed gross average
yield per acre of so. Some of the crops
Strawberries $50 to $500 per acre;
| cherries. $50 to $3.50: peaches, 500 to
$1,000, and apples, 500 to $500.
| When. In 1910. the Yuma, Cal,
he1e TEN to m the eaeS p0 @
| the ia farms. This land was made ir-
rigable through means of a dam nineteen
feet high. 4,7s0 feet long and $50 feet
vide. which diverts the waters OF the
rangement at the headgates of the canals
the waters of this muddy stream are
drawn off comparatively clear.
A different method has been carried
| Instead of dams and tunnels, a pumping
system is used for the recovery Of under
| grouasd waters This water is delivered
into conduit leading to an old distribut-
DITCH The plant consists of twenty
three pumping stations, each driven by
| electricity from central power station
| There are 1O677 acres Of irrigabIe land
in the project.
In carrying on such q work as that
being done by the reclamation service
| one of the most necessary
/ Value OF adjuncts is publicity. A
p,h,;.;4,, special branch of the
uuiAoAtJ' Washington office here
has charge of that particular end Of the
work and is kept continually busy. When
a project has been completed the public
must be notified before the farms can be
inhabited. That is done in many ways.
The newspapers, magazines and mails
are called into use and thousands of
notices are sent out. Many regular cor
| respondents also receive notices.
While the United States government is
not trying to make money through this
work. 1t is not, at the same time, trying
to give the people something for nothing.
That seems, however, to be the opinion
| of some, If their letters can be taken as
fair example Many of the letters
which are continually flooding the Office
are from people who have practically no
money at all, who yet desire to secure
one Of Uncle Sans farms. In some in
SO evident that it Is hard to have to send
a negative reply. Work weary people of
the cities, hearing the cry OF the open
country, write to know If they can
own q little home of their own with a
| little garden. And sometimes they write
that although they have no money, they
/ will work hard to get such farm.
| In addition to this general publicity the
Reclamation Record is a monthly bulletin
which is published by the service.
/ The reclamation service is branch of
the Interior Department, and was for
some time a part OF the Geological Sur
vey. The director of the service is Fred
/ erick HAYNES Newell The portion of the
country in which lands are being reclaim