USA > Idaho > History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume I > Part 45
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As a matter of fact, Idaho being principally an agricultural and grazing state, and no great manufacturing interests being likely to develop by reason of its remoteness from available markets. is not likely to have within its borders a city of great population except it is developed by being made headquarters of a great mining section. This and this alone has built up great cities in the inter- mountain region, not cities in the mining camps alone, but places like Denver, Salt Lake City and Spokane, that owe their rise and continued prosperity to their being mining centers.
Many other talked-of railroads besides those mentioned would greatly assist in building up the state and undoubtedly all these needed roads will be constructed in the future and thus assure Idaho the prosperity denied her at the present.
CHAPTER XXIII
AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
FIRST FARMING IN IDAHO TYPES OF FARMING-IRRIGATION-THE CAREY ACT- THE RECLAMATION SERVICE-THE ARROWROCK PROJECT-MINIDOKA PROJECT- KING HILL PROJECT-OTHER ARID LANDS IN IDAHO-FUTURE POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT-SECRETARY LANE'S IDEA-DRY FARMING-EXPERIMENT STATIONS -IDAHO LANDS- FARM PRODUCTS-SUGAR PRODUCTION-FIELD PEAS-WHERE IDAHO RANKS FIRST-LIVE-STOCK-THE DAIRY INDUSTRY-BEES AND HONEY -AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS- STATE FAIRS.
The first attempts at tilling the soil in Idaho were made by the early mis- sionaries, by the little Mormon colony that settled in Lemhi Valley in the '50s, and by the settlement made by the Mormons at Franklin in 1860. The efforts of the few people mentioned were confined to the cultivation of small tracts of land, raising barely enough grain and vegetables for home consumption. With the rush to the gold fields on the Salmon River in 1862, and to the Boise Basin in 1863, there came a demand for farm products that soon induced many who came to seek their fortunes in the new mining camps to conclude that endeavors to raise crops to supply the miners would be better paying than digging for gold. The fact has already been mentioned that ex-Governor McConnell engaged in farming on a small scale in the Payette Valley near what is called Jerusalem early in 1864. A number of others made settlements in the Payette and Boise valleys from 1863 to 1866. Most of these settlers squatted upon the bottom lands in the valleys or along the rivers, and in places where fair crops could be raised without the aid of irrigation. The mining camps furnished a sure mar- ket 'for all the vegetables, grain and hay that could be raised.
Most of those engaged in farming added stock raising to their pursuits and soon considerable herds of cattle and horses began to appear upon the ranges in the territory. This required but little effort upon the part of the owners of the livestock, as no pretense was made by anyone of feeding either cattle or horses during the winter months. The stock could take care of itself with no particular effort, especially on the low lands along the Snake River, where white sage abounded which was readily eaten by stock and where but little snow fell in the winter time.
NECESSARY FACTORS IN FARMING
In order to prosecute farming successfully it is necessary to have fertile soil, a sufficient amount of moisture and a market for the products raised. Idaho
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has all three. The volcanic ash soil of the Snake River Valley and its contiguous valleys, is extremely rich in the mineral elements of plant food, and while de- ficient in nitrogen in many places, such deficiency is not material in view of the fact that alfalfa, clover and similar plants are easily raised over the entire area covered by such valleys, where irrigating water can be had. and plowing such crop under feeds the soil by the decomposition of the plowed-in vegetable matter. The soil of the farming sections of the northern counties, especially of the Palouse country and the Big Camas Prairie, like that of the foothills, contiguous to much of the valley land in Southern Idaho, is peculiarly adapted to raising grain, and there is sufficient rainfall in such sections to secure good crops where deep plowing and thorough cultivation is had. Much of the land in the timbered sections raises excellent crops after the tree stumps are removed, and upon practically all of these lands of the state grasses naturally grow, mainly the suc- culent bunch grass, which provides the best of food for livestock.
METHODS OF FARMING
The average annual rainfall varies from eight inches in some of the southern counties of Idaho to more than forty inches in some sections of the northern part of the state, notably in the area adjoining the Bitterroot .Range. In the northern part of the state, that portion lying north of the Salmon River, there is practically no irrigation, except in the vicinity of Lewiston and a few other isolated localities. There is sufficient humidity to raise heavy grain crops and the arable lands generally lie so far above and higher than the streams as to make irrigation impossible even if it were necessary in order to raise crops; farming methods there resemble those in vogue in the older states and are what has often been called "the humid method" of farming.
IRRIGATION
The greater part of the intermountain section, lying in the valleys, requires the artificial application of water before profitable crops can be successfully raised. The rainfall in such sections is always slight, and practically no rain falls at all during the summer months, when moisture is most needed. In the older states irrigation is not necessary and while in some places it would greatly assist many of the farmers, it is not practiced, because it is unknown and besides is generally impracticable. There is no irrigation practiced in those European countries whence came almost the entire emigration that settled in the farming sections of the eastern states.
In Italy and Spain irrigation is extensively practiced. In Egypt and other countries bordering on the Mediterranean it is the saving grace that permits the people to raise the necessary food stuff to supply their wants. It was irri- gation that made the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris in Central Asia the granaries of the ancient world, and the destruction of their irrigation systems makes those places, once more densely populated than any other part of Asia, barren deserts incapable of sustaining human life, except of the few nomads who there reside and depend upon their flocks and herds for a scanty living.
Irrigation was practiced in a desultory, inefficient manner in Mexico before our war with that country, and the art was learned in an amateurish way by the few people of California and New Mexico who lived there under Mexican
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HISTORY OF IDAHO
rule. The early settlers of Oregon mostly settled in the Willamette Valley and there an excess of moisture instead of a scarcity existed, but the people who made settlements in the intermountain sections soon learned that without irri- gation they must either starve or learn. That most wide awake and compre- hensively intelligent of all the pioneers of the West, Brigham Young, realized even before he made an effort to plant crops, that it was just as necessary to provide a water supply for irrigation as it was to obtain seed for planting, and started those under his guidance to making ditches and canals to bring the water of the streams upon the lands before the planted seed had yet begun to sprout.
The Mormon colony which first settled in Lemhi County constructed irriga- ting ditches to water their crops; those pioneer settlers of Franklin built a canal nearly four miles long and so turned Maple Creek on their farms. The earlier settlers in the valleys of southern Idaho soon learned by hard bought experience that water there was as necessary as land for raising crops of any kind. A few like Governor McConnell turned the easily shifted waters of the adjacent streams on the lands upon which they had squatted and reaped a greater golden harvest selling their farm products in the adjacent mining camps than was acquired by those actually digging out the gold.
The first land settled upon by the intending farmers who flocked into the territory was either in those parts of the valleys of the smaller streams so lying as to be self irrigated, or was land near the streams whereon the waters thereof could be easily placed. As settlers kept taking homesteads the harder it became to put the water on the land and neighbors soon began to join together and build ditches for their common use, dividing the water so acquired and sharing the necessary expenses of maintenance and repair .. The advent of the Oregon Short Line Railroad so stimulated irrigation that the bench lands had to be taken or the emigrants remain landless. These higher lands were just as fertile as the lower, but the cost of building irrigation canals was beyond the financial ability of the locators, and so it became necessary and profitable, as well, to incorporate irrigation companies, who constructed the necessary water ways and put the water upon the lands, charging either a stipulated annual fee for the use of the water or a larger sum for a permanent water right. Friction, how- ever, developed in so many cases of this kind between the ditch owning corpora- tion and its farmer customers, that in 1891 the state legislature at its third session enacted a statute permitting the organization of irrigation districts and giving such districts the right to either construct water ways at the expense of the district or by agreement and if that was impossible, by condemnation pro- ceedings to acquire the title of existing corporations. In this way the farmers controlled the water supply used upon their lands.
THE CAREV ACT
But none of the methods in vogue fully answered the purposes sought. In Idaho under the district law no district could be organized on unsettled land, and it was impossible to induce settlers to locate upon lands where there was but slight probability of obtaining a water supply. Various methods of meeting this exigency, which existed not alone in Idaho but in all the arid states, were proposed, but the practical solution was found when in 1894 Honorable Joseph
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HISTORY OF IDAHO
M. Carey, United States senator from Wyoming, proposed the bill which now bears his name, and is known as the "Carey Act," had it added for convenience in securing its passage to an appropriation bill, and it passed both Houses of Congress, was signed by the president and became law. Under its provisions each arid state became entitled to select not to exceed 1,000,000 acres of arid lands and to contract with companies or persons for the irrigation of lands included in a particular project for the building of necessary reservoirs and water conduits and obtaining title to the necessary water rights; the promoters to have the privilege of contracting with intending settlers for furnishing water for certain lands within the state selected tract, not exceeding 160 acres in area, upon terms theretofore fixed between the state and the promoter as part of the contract made, and upon the promoter building the necessary works and supply- ing the water, and the settler paying for the water as agreed by him in his contract with the promotor, the state could issue deed to the settler, first having procured title from the United States under the law and regulations by showing completion of the system and thereupon all of the settlers having so complied, the project was to be accepted by the state, and conveyed by the promoting com- pany to a water users association, acting for the settlers and the title to the works thereby becoming vested in the settlers. Under the law all plans of the promotors had not only to be approved by the State Land Board, acting for the state, but by the Secretary of the Interior as well; and the promoting company acquiring a lien upon the lands of the settlers as security for payment of the amount due for water rights. Many companies were soon organized to con- struct irrigating systems in Idaho under the provisions of the Carey Act, and the million acres provided for in the Act became exhausted. An amendment to the Carey Act was, however, passed in 1901, increasing the amount of land that could be taken by the state to 2,000,000 acres and this satisfied Idaho's necessi- ties. No other arid state but Idaho has exhausted its original million acre appropriation.
After the amendment of 1901 rapid progress was made in the construction of irrigating systems, and as a result Idaho has a greater number of Carey Act projects than any other of the states to which the Act applies. The following list of Carey Act projects now awaiting completion is taken from the records in the State Land Office at Boise :---
Project. Acres.
American Falls Canal & Power Co. 57,24I
Big Lost River Irrigation Co., 77,397
Blaine County Irrigation Co., 14,796
Black Canyon Irrigation District,
18,140
Grand View Extension Irrigation Co., (est.)
1,000
High Line Pumping Co.,
5,000
Houston Ditch Co. 1,840
Idaho Irrigation Co.,. 139,300
Keatney Carey Land Co., 3,835
Marysville Canal & Improvement Co., 14,538
Owyhee Irrigation Co., 640
Owsley Carey Land & Irrigation Co., 28,200
UNITED STATES RECLAMATION SERVICE BUILDING, BOISE
IFTTTTI
GOVERNMENT DIVERSION DAM AND POWER HOUSE, TEN MILES ABOVE BOISE
.
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HISTORY OF IDAHO
Project. /
Acres.
Portneuf-Marsh Valley Irrigation Co.
13.480
Pratt Irrigation Co., Ltd., 4,674
Snake River Irrigation Co.,. 1.400
Thousand Springs Land & Irrigating Co., 8,000
Twin Falls Land & Water Co., 240,000
Twin Falls, North Side Land & Water Co. 205.979
Milner South Side Project .. 3,681
Twin Falls, Oakley Land & Water Co. 55,664
Twin Falls Salmon River Land & Water Co., 87,358
982,163
The Owyhee Irrigation Company, Owsley Carey Land & Irrigation Con- pany, Portneuf-Marsh Valley Irrigation Company, Snake River Irrigation Com- pany and Twin Falls Land & Water Company were accepted by the state in 1917 and 1918 and turned over to the settlers. On those projects are 274,570 acres.
In 1917 and 1918 the following Carey Act projects were relinquished : Blackfoot North Side Irrigation Company; Bruneau Irrigation Company ; Heg- sted Project ; Twin Falls Land and Water Company, Big Bruneau Project, and West End Twin Falls Irrigation Company. Area, 75.490 acres.
In 1917 the King Hill Irrigation & Power Company and King Hill Extension Irrigation Company were taken under control by the United States Reclama- tion Service and irrigation districts organized by the settlers. Area, 23,015 acres.
In these Carey Act projects the amount of land sold up to December 1, 1918, was 934,246 acres. These figures show something of what irrigation com- menced under the laws of the United States had done for Idaho, but there is still more to be told.
UNITED STATES RECLAMATION SERVICE
After the Carey Act had been in operation for a few years it was discovered that in many sections of the arid West larger sums than could be secured under the provisions of that law were required to build reservoirs and canals necessary for the cultivation of large tracts of land; and in 1902 Congress passed the statute commonly called the Reclamation Act, which provides for the advance- ment by the United States of the funds necessary to construct such irrigating systems as may be determined upon by the Secretary of the Interior, the money advanced to be repaid from the lands affected in annual payments extending over a given term of years.
In Idaho three irrigating systems have been built or are in process of con- struction by the Federal Reclamation service. Two of these have been com- pleted ; the third is in process of construction.
TIIE ARROWROCK PROJECT
The most important irrigation project ever attempted in the State of Idaho was the Arrowrock Project, the second effort made by the United States Govern- ment under the Reclamation Act.
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HISTORY OF IDAHO
Boise Valley is one of the oldest settled sections of Idaho and contains a large amount of arable land. The water supply is all derived from the Boise River. Generally in the spring there is an immense flood of water, but the fall supply is very limited. The length of the irrigation season in the Boise Valley is from April I to November I.
It was long known that there was an ample water supply in the Boise River if properly conserved to irrigate all of the lands in the Boise Valley. Reservoir sites, however, were hard to obtain on the Boise River or any of its tributaries. In the Boise Valley a few miles from Nampa, an opportunity presented itself of storing a considerable amount of water in the Deer Flat Reservoir, which was adopted in 1905 and construction soon after commenced; it has sufficient dimen- sions to hold 127,000 acre feet of water. The construction of this reservoir gave considerable aid to the farm owners below Nampa, but only incidentally helped those in the upper valley.
After the passage of the Reclamation Act, the Government, appreciating the great advantages to be gained from extending the water supply of the Boise Valley, made diligent search for a proper reservoir site, and at Arrowrock, a point twenty miles above Boise, found an opportunity of constructing a reservoir that would materially assist in the irrigation of the lands covered by the waters of the Boise River. In 1911, the railroad running from Boise to Barberton was extended to Arrowrock and the construction of the dam was commenced, and it was finished in 1915.
It cost to construct this dam $4.750,000. The cost of the entire project has been $12,000,000. It is noted as being the highest dam in the world. From the lowest point of the foundation to the top of the parapet is 348.6 feet ; the height above the old river bed is 260 feet. The length of the dam on the crest is 1,100 feet. It was built on a curve for additional safety.
Six hundred thousand cubic yards of concrete were used in the construction of this dam, and its weight is over one million tons. Nearly seven hundred thou- sand cubic yards of excavation were made for the dam and spillway.
The regulating outlets for the discharge of the water of this dam are twenty in number, and 4 feet 4 inches in diameter, arranged in sets of ten each, the upper set being 100 feet above the old river bed. The water from these outlets, except under low head, jumps clear of the face of the dam and strikes the water below with a free fall, making a unique and magnificent waterfall.
A system of inspection galleries gives access to the interior of the dam at several elevations, the lowest of which is 230 feet below normal high water sur- face of the reservoir.
The spillway has a capacity of 40,000 second feet. The crest is 400 feet long, and the water flowing over the spillway is carried around the dam, through a concrete lined trench 900 feet long, varying in bottom width from 20 to 40 feet and in depth from 10 to 60 feet, excavated through solid rock.
The capacity of the reservoir is 244,300 acre feet. It is eighteen miles long and extends up both forks of the river. The Arrowrock Reservoir, together with the Deer Flat Reservoir, will furnish a late season water supply for about two hundred and forty-three thousand acres of land in the Boise Valley, included within the Boise Project. The water from this reservoir is discharged into the Boise River through several of the twenty outlets and is diverted into the New
ARROWROCK DAM
Highest in the world-3511% feet high. Twenty miles up Boise River from Boise, irrigating the Boise Valley
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HISTORY OF IDAHO
York Canal, the upper canal of the distributing system, at the Diversion Dam fifteen miles downstream from Arrowrock.
The construction of this dam marked a new era of prosperity in the history of the Boise Valley. Its effects were felt in all the towns of the valley by increase in population and business.
The railroad that was used by the Government in the construction of the dam has been dismantled, but a wagon road connects the dam with the valley. Not only has this dam proved of immense material benefit to all of the people of the Boise Valley, but, in addition, it has added a new scenic point to Idaho, and attracts the attention of hundreds of tourists each year.
THE MINIDOKA PROJECT
There is a drop in the Snake River of a few feet about two miles above Storey Ferry, the crossing of the river on the old road between Minidoka and Albion called Minidoka Falls. This point presented an ideal place for the construction of a dam across the Snake River, which would be the starting point of a canal to irrigate lands below it on the north side of the river, and could be used for a pumping plant for lands on the south side of the river. The Government in 1904, through the secretary of the interior, authorized the Minidoka Reclamation Project to be constructed at that point, and work was shortly after commenced.
On the north side of the river, there extended from this point in all directions a large area of arable lands, 120,000 acres of which could be watered from the contemplated canal, and the remaining portion of which would require a canal from the vicinity of American Falls, in order to fully cover it.
At a cost of $6,000,000, the Government constructed the dam across the river at the falls, built the canal on the north side of the river and put under irrigation through a gravity system the 120,000 acres lying below such dam, the canal hav- ing been finished over ten years ago, and nearly the entire area covered by it being now under cultivation.
Situate on the north Minidoka tracts, are the prosperous towns of Rupert, Paul, and Heyburn. A portion of this land so watered lies very flat, and required not only an irrigation system, but a drainage system as well, which has been finished by the Government, and there is no more successful farming area in all the state than is contained in this project.
On the south side of the river, conditions are different. Goose Creek runs more than thirty miles through a beautiful valley commencing at the Town of Oakley and extending to Burley. This valley becomes merged to a great extent in the great Snake River Valley before the Snake River is reached. Most of the arable land situated in this expanse cannot be watered by a gravity system from the Minidoka Dam, but the water supply at that point was sufficient to irrigate the 90,000 acres that could be readily covered, and in order to accomplish this result a powerful pumping plant was installed. Three different lifts were made in order to water the land at various stages of elevation. The entire tract is now under successful irrigation, and has proved itself to be one of the most fertile tracts in the Northwest, and become the center of a prosperous, thriving pop- ulation.
The Town of Burley, the county seat of Cassia County, is the principal town Vol. 1-29
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of this tract and is the largest center of population between Pocatello and Twin Falls.
THE KING HILL PROJECT
The third Government reclamation project in the state is the King Hill Project. It was commenced as a Carey Act project, and an extension of the King Hill Project, generally called the Medbury Carey Act Project, was permitted by the State Land Board.
Both of these projects were watered by the same canal from the Malad River, the lands of both projects being situate on the benches close to the Snake River and on both sides of the river. There was a little over twenty-three thousand acres of land involved in these two projects. The promoters of the projects were unable to carry the enterprise through, the cost being largely in excess of the amount for which the land could be sold, and the state was compelled to inter- vene to protect the settlers.
In 1917, however, the Government agreed to take the matter over under the Reclamation Act, and undoubtedly in the very near future the lands included in the project will be fully watered, and the Government will finally obtain from the settlers the amount that has been expended since the state took over the en- terprise. The company that financed the proposition in the first instance, how- ever, lost the money it had invested.
OTHER ARID LANDS IN IDAHO
There is a very large amount of arid land situate in the valleys of Idaho that is still waiting for water, and this land is of the same high degree of fertility as that already being cultivated. Nature has favored Idaho above all others of the arid states, in that it has not only given an immense area of arable lands that need but the magic touch of water to make them produce more bountifully than the choicest lands of the Mississippi Valley, but it has also provided enough water in the streams of the state, when it is properly conserved, to irrigate all of the lands that are so situate that irrigation is possible.
Mr. F. H. Newell, the head of the Reclamation Service of the United States for many years, and who did more than any other one man to make reclamation of arid lands a living reality, made a public statement on several occasions, nota- bly in 1903, in the City of Boise, wherein he said that for every acre of arid arable land in the State of Idaho, there is an ample water supply in the streams of the state to properly irrigate it when such water supply was properly conserved.
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