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Show e& This dam impounds the water of the Boise river, and a portion of it i3 conducted con-ducted to another reservoir construe ted in the valley below, "Which is inclosed by. two embankments containing nearly two and a half million cubic yards of earth, and gravel. Many jl her works of similar character have bp en constructed In various parts of the country, the total storage capacity . available Aggregating nearly nine and One-half . million acre-I acre-I feet. Canals Constructed. "In addition to this, canals and ditches have been constructed to a length of 5.34 miles; 14?, $47 feet of tunnels have been cosatructedL. The embankments and canals constructed have required the excavation of over 173,000.010 cubic yards, of which about 10 per cent was roc k and the balance earth. Over 8,000,000 cubic yards of concrete iiave been laid. "The average value of products on the reclamation projects during 1818 was over S64 per acre, without including livestock increase. This was about double the average acreage yield of the entire L'nited States. "The total value of crops harvested on the reclamation projects in 1?IS was about $67,000,000, or more than half the entire net construction cost of all the projects. On several of the projects the gross acreage acre-age yield is considerably in excess of the construction charges on the same acreage. "The net investment in the reclamation projects by the United States reclamation service is SH7.665.6-S. This sum is secured se-cured by contracts with water users, irrigation irri-gation districts and water users' associations, associa-tions, to be returned to the government under the terms of the law at an average rate of about 5 per cent per annum. The earlier payments, however, are smaller, and most of the projects are paying: at the rate of 2 per cent, as provided by law. The securities held by the service for these investments indicate that about 95 per cent of them will be actually returned In cash at the time provided by law. Much Water Furnished. "With the money invested the service has provided water systems and water supply for about 1,730,000 acres situated on the projects constructed by the government, gov-ernment, and. In addition to this: has furnished fur-nished water from Its reservoirs to systems sys-tems constructed by private or corporate enterprise or Irrigation districts for which the water supply was otherwise deemed inadequate to the amount of about 1,000,-000 1,000,-000 acres. "The reclamation service has provided storage water under the terms of the Warren act for about 1,000,000 acres of private land, distributed as follows: Idaho 53 per cent Nebraska . . 2; per cent Washington 6 per cent Wyoming 5 per cent Utah 1 per cent Total 100 per cent "On the government project lands are 40,000 families in independent homes. The population of the cities, villages and towns on these projects has been increased in-creased by an equal number of families. That is to a on the lands reclaimed there are now profitably employed and satisfactorily housed 400,000 people. "Measured by the yardstick of the financier, the dollar, the results of reclamation recla-mation are interesting. Sin the firs, ditch began turning its waters i:pon the land, the crops produced have had a total to-tal value of f 250, 000,000. The increa-? In land values due to tho53 reclamation : works 'ias been enormous. Conservative estimates show totals of more ihtn half a billion dollars." U. S. ENRiGHEO HT IKITil Crops Worth $250,000,000 Follow Investment of $120,000,000. Reclamation Work Is Described De-scribed in Illustrated Lecture Here. At an expenditure of less than $120,-000,000, $120,-000,000, the government, through its reclamation projects in the west, has added farm lands to the United. States conservatively estimated to be worth $500,000,000. Sixty-seven millions of dollars' dol-lars' worth of farm products were taken from these government-built projects in 191S, or more than half the entire amount that the federal government has spent upon irrigation. Since the beginning begin-ning of the reclamation service work the crops taken from lands brought under water on these projects have yielded returns re-turns amounting to $250,000,000. These and many other absorbing and interesting facts about the success of reclamation in the western states were brought out at a lecture meeting held in the Assembly hall last night in connection connec-tion with the irrigation conference. Arthur Ar-thur P. Davis, director and chief engineer, engi-neer, and C. J. Bl an chard, statistician and publicity, director of the United States reclamation service, were the speakers. Two reels of motion pictures and a large number of still views, showing the resuits of the work in Idaho and other parts of the west were shown by Mr. Blanchard. Mr. Davis gave a large number of interesting inter-esting facts and figures. Reclamation Lauded. Director Davis declared that the national na-tional reclamation act had now justified itself beyond doubt as a wise piece" of legislation. Mistakes had been made, he admitted, but he said that eventually 95 per cent of the federal funds invested in building- these projects would be returned to Uncle Sam's coffers by the settlers who are paying for their farms. Statistician Blanchard declared that it was time to stop the generally circulated impression that it took three or four aettlcrs to homestead one piece of property, prop-erty, .because of the large number of failures. fail-ures. Investigations recently made on five of the government's representative projects showed, he said, that it took less than one and one-half setuers to perma- . uently establish a homestead; that the great majority of them were settled permanently per-manently and successfully by the first arrivals. Speaking of some of the successes of the reclamation service. Director Davis said in part: Large Acreage Irrigated. "Under the provisions of the reclamation reclama-tion act, the United States has spent about $118,000,000 and has provided irrigation irri-gation facilities and water supply for 1,780,000 acres of land, of which about two-thirds are under actual irrigation and cultivation. In addition to the above, a partial supply or stored water is being delivered to about 1,000,000 acres of land which was previously irrigated with an insufficient water suppiy, and. under enabling en-abling legislation, purchased storage rights in government reservoirs. "The projects constructed are invariably invaria-bly those requiring heavy engineering work, usually involving construction of large storage reservoirs or long and difficult diffi-cult canal locations in mountainous country, coun-try, with a goodly proportion of tunneling, flume building and similar heavy work. . "It includes the construction of the Arrowrock dam on the Boise river in Idaho, with a total height of 34S feet, 1 sfcid to ho the highest dam yet construct- |
