Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1908 — IRRIGATION UP TO DATE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IRRIGATION UP TO DATE.

Grsat Desert Area Made Arable In Recent Years. In America irrigation was practiced thousands of years ago by the prehistoric town building Pueblo Indians in New Mexico and Arizona. The first systematic application of Irrigation to be made by the whites in the United States was inaugurated by the Mormons on the shores of the Great Salt lake In 1847. The Mormons found Utah anything but the promised land for which they had hoped. From necessity they resorted to irrigation and soon made the barreu site of Salt Lake City one of the most prosperous communities in the west. A few years later the placer miners in California utilized their placer wasb-

oonaTßtJcrnio ah ikrioatiok ditch. lng strfems for Irrigation purposes and raised large crops of vegetables and grain. However, irrigation did not make any extensive headway until the civil war and during the early seventies, when the great tide of immigration turned toward the west. In 1870 only about 20,000 acres of land were cultivated by Irrigation in the United States. In the next ten years this number was increased to 1,000,000 acres. During the years between 1880-90 irrigation experienced a great boom, and the number of acres increased to nearly 4,000,000. In 1902, the last census, the acreage was 9,034,526, and each month sees thousands of.acres added until the total is nearly 15,000,000 acres today.

Among the great Irrigating engineering feats of this country is the wonderful Strawberry valley project at Vernal, Utah, now under way, where a storage reservoir will be built to hold 5,000,000,000 gallons of water, and a tunnel three and one-half miles long is being cut through a mountain. The work is being *done by electrically driven tools, and when completed the water will first he used to generate electricity for lighting and power purposes and then for irrigation. The entire electrical equipment for this plant was furnished by the General Electric company. The Williston (N. D.) project and the Buford-Trenton project in the same state are operated entirely by electricity. The current Is generated by Curtis steam turbo-generators and is used to drive the large motors connected with the centrifugal pumps. Another system has been installed at Garden City, Kan., and still another at Salt Lake, Ariz. At the last named place the vertical shaft General Electric generators are directly connected to large water wheels for generating the current. •

The amount appropriated and expended by the government for irriga tion from 1901 to the close of the fiscal year ended June 30 last is over $37,000,000. The irrigation act gives the secretary of the interior a very wide latl-

tude in the investment of this large fund, although he is required to spend the major portion of the fund arising from the sale of public lands within each state or territory for the benefit of Its lands so far as practicable. ■* ■ 1 Turnip Tast* In Buttsr. The following is from a German agricultural publication: The milk from cows fed on turnips has a peculiar odor and taste. Apparently some volatile product from the turnips gets Into the body fluids of the cow and thus affects the milkThis fault may be corrected by warming or aerating the milk. But,’besides this, certain organisms, us coll bacteria, Actinomyces odorifer, Penicilllum brevicaule and lactic acid bacteria, which ap found in the faeces of cows fed ou beets or turnips, also produce the turnip flavor and aroma In batter made from milk or cream in which they are present. The turnip taste of butter may be due to both of these causes together. Butter may have the turnip flavor and aroma, however, even when no turnips are fed, as coll bacteria causing the taste are found also on oats, barley, corn, rape and other feeding •stuffs. Pasteurizing the iqllk, with subsequent aeration. Is recommended as a means of preventing the development of the turnip flavor In batter.

COMPLETED IRRIGATION DITCH.