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Show WAR ON THE DESERT. The Irrigation congress that was in session at Boise City in the -Week beginning be-ginning September 3, says Colliers, brought together thousands of delegates, dele-gates, representing half the states of the union. It was an Imposing meas-uro meas-uro of tho growth of an Industry , mighty in its infancy. In a letter read at tho opening meeting, President Roosevelt announced that the Uecla mation Service was employing ovei four hundred skilled engineers and experts, and that construction was already al-ready well advanced on twenty-threo i v great enterprises in the arid states and territories. Over a million acres I of land had been laid out for irrlgii tlon, of which two hundred thousand 1 were already under ditch; eight hun dred miles of canals and ditches and six miles of tunnels had been com- pleted; over ten thousand square 1 miles of country had been thorough- j ly surveyed, and twenty thousand l m miles of level lines had been run. At tho time of writing more than ten tousand men and about Ave thousand horses were employed. Tho President reminded tho congress con-gress that lands reclaimed by irrigation irriga-tion at tho public expense wero In n very different position from those carved by the settler's own efforts out of the wilderness. A farm of one hundred and sixty acres, which might bo a reasonable homestead on the I prairies, would be a monopoly holding in an irrigated region where forty, or even five, acres would support a fam-Ily fam-Ily and keep it busy. Hence President i Roosevelt inslsfed that "tho require ment of the Reclamation Act that the slzo of the farm unit shall be limited In ench region to the area which will 'comfortably support one family must bo enforced In letter and spirit." I The Forest Service work showed the President's praise with that of the Reclimatlon Service. Its purpose he I defined to bo "to make every resource of tho forset reserves contribute in I the highest degree to the permanent i prosperity of tho people who depend ' upon them." Ho conveyed the encouraging information infor-mation that the Forest Service had proved that forest fires could bo controlled. con-trolled. In 1905. after it had been In operation for only fine year, only one-tenth one-tenth of one per cent of tho area of the forest reserves was burned over. The stockman and settlers' had learned learn-ed to cooperate with the government's officers, tho sources of tho streams Upon Up-on which tho arid lands depended for irrigation wero being preserved, and a certain and permanent source of local revenue was being developed, for ten per csnt of all the money received re-ceived from tho reserves went to the counties in which they lny, to bo used for school purposes. This contribution contribu-tion amounted to nearly $70,000 tho j first year, with tho certainty of a steady increase. Some opposition to tho forest re-servo re-servo policy developed among such representtalves of thd old frontier Ideas as Senator Heyburn of Idaho. Tho congress disappointed tiro President, Pres-ident, too, by protesting against justice jus-tice to tho Philippines in tho matter of tho tariff, on the ground that Americans Amer-icans wanted to raise beet sugar on tho arid lands and objected to com-petition. com-petition. It recited tho fact that the sugar beet industry In arid America already returned to the farmers an annual revenue of more than $20,000.-000, $20,000.-000, and asserted that tho production at homo of tho sugar now imported from the tropics would give our farmers farm-ers an additional marlfot worth nearly $100,00,000 a year. This objection, of course,, would bo still more strenuously strenuous-ly urged against tho proposed annexation annex-ation of Cuba, accompanied by the freo Cuban sugar, without which all tho desiro for annexation now prevailing pre-vailing on tho island would dlsap- I pear. o' |