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LAKES.

NE cause of anxiety concerning the lake levels is the immense "Drainage Canal" from Lake Michigan, at Chicago, through a portion of the State of Illinois. But the Drainage Canal," with its great drainage on Lake Michigan, is really a merchant-ship canal which provides another water route to and from the Atlantic, this time via the Mississippi river, and it cannot be interfered with. By this route, American men-of-war can come up to the lakes. Congress will look after the lake levels and, by a system of immense dams in different locations, the level of the lakes will be kept sufficiently high so that the stage of water at the shallowest points in connecting rivers (with additional dredging and rock blasting) will be deep enough for the largest and deepest lake carriers. This ship canal is really a National institution, and in case of war would be all-important, as it will at all times be to the commercial world. There is a secret about this great project which may now be let out. years old residents of Chicago labored for it, but, under the name of a ship canal, to connect the lakes with the Mississippi and the Atlantic," the masses refused to expend the millions necessary. The matter was allowed to drop out of the public mind for a few years, and a seemingly brand new project of "a great drainage sewer for Chicago" was then broached, and it went through with a rush. Now Chicago has her drainage sewer and the nation has a great ship canal, and the dear people are benefited even against their own will.

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And if a ship canal, or a drainage canal, why not an irrigation canal? As the safe and sure (the irrigation) plan of farming grows in Illinois, it will suggest itself to the agricultural classes that this "Chicago Drainage Canal" can be tapped, and that other, special, irrigation canals can be

system of irrigating canals. And if this can be brought about in Illinois, then every State having a lake front can follow her example.

Irrigation is being adopted generally in the central West, and in the Eastern and Southern States, and the people will go any length to obtain water. In a word, the agriculturists seem to have suddenly awakened to the fact that the element of uncertainty can surely be removed from their industry and that the means to this end is irrigation. Located on fertile soil, they are tired of losing a crop every other season, while farmers on arid lands in the far West have a certainty of several crops every season.

For the present the central Western States just resorting to irrigation-Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, etc.—will confine their operations mostly to the orchards and the garden vegetables, and wells, pumps, and reservoirs will be the means of obtaining and accumulating water, but sooner or later the lake States will be watered from those great fresh water lakes, and there will be water enough obtainable to insure the safety of all the great staple crops.

LIVE STOCK INTERESTS.

Samuel W. Allerton,one of the large pork packers of Chicago,is in Washington in the interest of live stock growers, shippers and traders. At a recent meeting of the representatives of the Live Stock Exchanges of Omaha, Kansas City, Sioux City, Buffalo and Pittsburg, it was determined to petition congress in regard to the re-establishment of reciprocal relations with foreign countries, so that cattle and hogs could be sold to advantage. Communications were addressed to the members of the Ways and Means Committee, and a hearing has been accorded the representives of the National Live Stock Exchange. We shall go before the sub

committee on reciprocity, of which Congressman Hopkins of Illinois is chairman, and state our case and urge prompt action by Congress at this session.

On

Mr. Allerton said: "It is all well enough to talk about a restoration of the tariff, but no relief from such a source can be obtained inside of six months. the other hand, if we can renew our former relations with Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and other European countries, so that our cattle may be sold there, the benefit will be instantaneous. This point will be impressed upon the Ways and Means Committee, and I do not see how this body can fail to act promptly upon a matter which is so vital to the interests of the United States."

Governor McIntire, of Colorado, has issued a proclamation establishing a quarantine against cattle and horses from California, Texas, and the territory of Oklahoma, and other States and Territories lying south of the thirty-sixth parallel of north latitude, and prohibiting their admission to the State except upon certificates of the Veterinary Sanitary Board or their duly authorized inspectors.

Governor Rickards, of Montana, has issued his proclamation prohibiting the importation of sheep into Montana from Oregon, Nevada, California, Washington, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Utah and Territories of Oklahoma and New Mexico.

There were 14,000 head of cattle in the Kansas City yards about the middle of the month.

A co-operative creamery association has been organized at Darien, Wisconsin, that will erect one of the finest creameries in the State. The charter has been secured and officers elected as follows: L. E. Hastings, president; M. E. Cusack, manager; M. H. Gardner, secretary; B. J. Blakely, treasurer; Frank Randall, John Piper and Clarence Mereness, directors and building committee.

The Western Packers' Canned Goods Association of Chicago has elected L. G. Seager, president; J. S. Edwards, Leavenworth, Kansas, secretary and treas

urer.

At the Indiana Congress of Industrial Associations, composed of the organizations engaged in the promotion of agricultural pursuits, Governor Matthews.

urged the establishment of a midwinter stock show to be held in connection with the Chicago show.

The Kansas City Cattle Company has received a charter from the State of Kansas, and will engage in the cattle business on a large scale.

The Union Stock Yards, at Sioux Falls, So. Dakota, has incorporated with $1,000,000 capital stock.

The South is at present affording a fair market for horses.

Commission men have taken up the fight for live stock shippers against the switching charge of $2 per car levied on all stock by the railroads in Chicago, and the case is before the Illinois Railroad and Warehouse Commission.

At the annual convention of the National League of Commission Merchants of the United States, in St. Louis, it was resolved that the commission men of the country were the representatives of the producers, and that they must see to it that producers get fair transportation rates and fair treatment as regards a saving of time in shipments and proper handling of the products. A firm stand against the railroads was decided upon.

GOOD ROADS.

Good Roads Parliament, at its last session, held at Atlanta, Georgia, heard reports from thirty-two States relative to the progress made in the construction of roads, and as to legislation concerning good roads. The United States government had constructed on the Exposition grounds four classes of roads, and the afternoons during the session were spent in seeing the roads tested. The members of the Parliament also witnessed the construction of an improved road by convict labor, engineering skill and improved machinery. There were exhibits of road material from all sections of the Union. The officers of the Parliament, as elected, are: President, Gen. Roy Stone, Washington, District of Columbia; first vice-president, Judge W. F. Eve, of Georgia; second vicepresident, Hon. J. A. C. Wright, of New York; secretary, W. G. Whidby, of Atlanta, Georgia; assistant secretary, J. S. Rogers, of New Jersey. Rogers, of New Jersey. The next meeting will be held at Nashville during the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.

Congress and the Legislatures are respectfully reminded that the farmers, the bicycle riders (embracing about half the population of the country) and the bicycle manufacturers (representing many millions of dollars) are a unit in demanding good roads in every State in the Union.

IRRIGATION REPORTS.

In the list of irrigation reports that appeared in the January issue of THE AGE, by an oversight two of the earlier ones were omitted. They are as follows:

Report of the Board of Commissioners on the Irrigation of the San Joaquin, Tulare and Sacramento Valleys of the State of California, by Lieut. Col. B. S. Alexander, Major G. H. Mendell, and Prof. George Davidson. Washington Government print, 1874, pp. 90 and maps. Only 500 copies printed and now scarce. a report on the Irrigation and Reclamation of Land for Agricultural Purposes as now practiced in India, Egypt, Italy, etc., by Prof. George Davidson. Washington Government print, 1875, pp. 70 and maps. 500 copies printed and now scarce.

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Mr. H. M. Wilson says, in his paper on American Irrigation Engineering, p. 138, of these two reports that "they are two of the mile-posts which mark the awakening of the people of California and the country at large to the subject of irriga tion and the necessity of learning the best methods of practicing it.'

A LUMBER TRUST.

The lumber interests of the Pacific coast have consolidated. The Central Lumber Company of California, recently organized, controls $70,000,000 of capital invested in lumber mills, timber lands, vessels and plants. It comprises practically all mill and ship owners and every wholesale and retail dealer on the Pacific coast. The price of lumber has been advanced $2 a thousand feet already.

KANSAS.

The Valley State Bank of Hutchinson, Kansas, suspended February 11.

There are forty-five windmill irrigation plants around Larned, according to E. E. Frizell.

John Edwards, of Larned, says the great need of the Pawnee valley is a canning factory.

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Kansas lawyers are trying to have the State divided into two districts, each with a United States District Court.

W. B. Sutton of the Kansas State Board of Irrigation is very enthusiastic in regard to the reclamation of the great plains by means of pumps and windmills.

Prof. A. R. Taylor of the Kansas State Normal School is in Washington trying to get Congress to pass a bill appropriating part of the revenues of public lands to the support of all State normal schools in the United States. He is also trying to aid in securing the passage of the Fort Hayes bill, by which the State Normal School of Kansas will be much benefited.

The State Board of Irrigation of Kansas has practically determined to locate an irrigation plant at Hoxie and another at Wallace. These plants are a part of the seven remaining under the act of the Legislature to be located. Chairman D. M. Frost of the Board has been making some tests of the underflow near Garden

City. By means of a pump, with a sixinch supply and four inch discharge pipe, he pumped 600 gallons of water per minute from the well. Experiments will be made by the Board for the purpose of discovering whether or not it is possible to exhaust the underflow in that well.

H. V. Hinckley, of Kansas, the wellknown authority, presented an excellent paper at the recent session of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture upon the subject of Underflow as Related to Irrigation Development." He said the residents of the plains are entirely correct in their view of the underflow-that it does flow-and insisted that too many canals have been built where reliable water supply is not a surface supply. Pumping plants and gravity developments of the underflow furnish reliable supplies which can be guaranteed in advance of the investment, whether a few thousand or millions of gallon a day.

The name of the Kansas Mutual Life Association has been changed. The organization will hereafter be known as the Kansas Mutual Life Insurance Company. This action was taken at a meeting of the Board of Directors in February. This institution has entered upon the fifteenth year of its business career. The present officers of the company are as follows: President, John P. Davis; vice-president, W. M. Welcome; secretary, John E. Moon;

assistant secretary, W. B. Kingsley; superintendent of agents, F. E. Marsh; medical director, Dr. S. E. Sheldon; actuary, C. G. Blakely; counsel, R. T. Herrick. The Board of Directors is as follows: E. N. Morrill, John R. Mulvane, W. M. Welcome, John P. Davis and John E. Moon. The members of the Advisory Board are as follows: T. B. Sweet, Jonathan Thomas, Edward Wilder, E. H. Snow, Geo. M. Noble, Thomas Page, Charles Wolff, H. E. Ball, P. I. Bonebrake, Samuel T. Howe, Willard N. Hall, Geo W. Crane, C. R. O'Donald, H. A. Heath, Joab Mulvane, James A. Troutman and Charles S. Gleed.

NEVADA.

In past years comparatively little interest has been taken in the irrigation question in Nevada as a factor in the upbuilding of the State, but recently, and as the people have grown to appreciate her agricultural possibilities, several large irrigation enterprises have been discussed, but as yet none of these have progressed beyond the initial stage, though one or two at least, promise to be carried out in the near future.

The most notable of these is a project to utilize the water of the Humboldt river, supplemented in the latter part of the season by stored water, to reclaim some 60,000 acres of fine alluvial lands on the north side of the river at Battle mountain.

At this place storage can be accomplished and canals constructed so cheaply, that if the enterprise shall be carried out as at present planned, the land, with water delivered and water right free and perpetual, can be sold as low as $10 per acre and still yield a profit of 100 per cent on the investment.

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At Lovelakes, near the lower end of the Humboldt valley, about 1,500 acres new land will be brought under irrigation and cropped this year. S. R. Young, of that place, is pushing work on his canal which is designed to supply water to some 4,000 or 5,000 acres of land not now under ditch, and hopes to have it completed before the end of the year.

In Carson valley, Mr. Newlands, representing the Sharon Estate, is prepared this year to supply water from his reservoir, constructed in 1895, to some 3,000 or 4,000 acres of new land.

From every county in the State come reports of developments, both agricultural and mineral, and of increase of popula tion which, though not great, indicate that the period of decadence of the Sage Brush State is past, and that she is already entering upon a new era.

SO. DAKOTA.

At the meeting of the executive committee of the So. Dakota Immigration Association in Aberdeen, recently, it was decided to take up the matter of irrigation and immigration in an active manner. The committee represented all parts of the State.

The dates for the irrigation convention at Redfield, S. Dakota have been changed to March 4 and 5. The call was issued by State Engineer of Irrigation Baldwin.

R. M. Springer is organizing a company to irrigate South Dakota lands with artesian wells.

NEBRASKA.

The late irrigation convention, at Sidney, seems to have given a great impetus to irrigation in that vicinity. This same result has followed the holding of these conventions at other points in the State. Many district canals are now projected, and a number of the canals completed or nearly completed will be converted into district canals.

The great underground flume, near Sutherland, that carries the water of the

North Platte across and under the South Platte river has so far proven a success.

The farmers of Nebraska are generally adopting the windmill system of irrigation, and windmill plants are now to be seen all over the State. At a late meeting of the State Horticultural Society, at Lincoln, the question of irrigation was discussed to a great length. I. A. Fort read a paper on Irrigation for the Orchard and Garden, stating what had been done in Nebraska on these lines.

The State Irrigation Immigration Society held its first meeting in the Capitol building in Lincoln, on the 14th of January, to perfect arrangements to promote immigration to the irrigable lands of the

State.

North Platte will hold a Western Nebraska Fair at some time during the com

ing summer. They propose to show what irrigation can do for the State. The fair will immediately follow after the Lexing ton Irrigation Convention. Hon. W. F. Cody's Wild West, will arrange to exhibit during the fair week, as the show will be en route to the Pacific coast at about that time, and the show will again exhibit in the town that gave it birth.

The farmers who are using farm mills for irrigation purposes are making complaints that they have not sufficient strength to stand the strain that comes from working the extra large and heavy pumps that are used for this purpose. Extra heavy strong mills, like the Aermotor, are needed.

The district canal promoters are waiting in suspense on the decision of the U. S. Supreme Court on the validity of the Wright Act.

WESTERN PUSH.

Seattle, Washington, is to have a new water supply, for which $1,250,000 was voted in December.

It has been learned that the contract for

building the big irrigation canal through Fort Hall reservation, in Idaho, is good, in spite of the protest made by the Indians.

"Indian" Jones, of Utah, has gone to Washington with a monster petition in favor of opening a portion of the Uintah Indian reservation.

A new industry is being developed in Orange County, California, that of manufacturing oil from eucalyptus leaves, which is being used extensively for medicinal purposes.

Prof. George Davidson, of California, has just finished an examination and report upon the nearly completed project of the Stanislaus and San Joaquin Irrigation Co., a project that proposes to irrigate some 200,000 acres of land in the neighborhood of Stockton in the San Joaquin valley. They take their water from the Stanislaus river above Knight's Ferry, and take it seventeen miles to the plains. They have put up some good flumes, one 2,400 feet long in two sections of 1,200 feet each, and ninety feet from the ground to the bottom of the flume box.

MINERAL WAX.

The true mineral wax was discovered thirty or forty years ago in Eastern Utah, on Howland mountain, in the Pleasant valley country, says the Mining Industry, and in other districts in Utah. It was the true ozocerite and was named utahcerite claytonia by and after Professor Clayton, of Salt Lake City. It corresponds to the paraffine that is obtained as a product of the petroleum refineries of Pennsylvania, and which is used in the manufacture of candles and for a variety of purposes. The native article has not yet been found in this country in quantities sufficient to make it pay. In the raw, some ten years ago, it was quoted worth $800 per ton. The principal mines are in Galicia, Austria, where the deposits are large, and the mining of it is done by women and children. True ozocerite is a lustreless black and melts in the sun's rays. It is very light, burns at high temperature and is odorless. Nearly all the candles of the Greek Church in Russia are made of ozocerite, which is refined and bleached to nearly a transparent whiteness, and the candles are handpainted with flowers and religious symbols. As a by-product the ozocerite yields cosmetics, dyes, gas and a score of other articles, and if a prospector is ever lucky enough to strike a large deposit in Utah or Wyoming, he will have a good thing. For several decades of years the Galicia mines were supposed to be the only ozocerite mines in the world, but of comparative recent date a discovery was reported in Egypt and somewhere in South America. The Pleasant valley mines were developed, but the ozocerite at depth gave place to asphalt and minerals of kindred nature. The ozocerite is most likely to abound where salt beds and coal or petroleum are in contact.

AN exchange from that State says: "The new dispensation for Western Nebraska is based largely upon the windmill. To be able to pull through from one year to another, through thick and thin, is the one thing desired for the pioneer. With water for but a few acres this consummation is reached."

FLOUR MILL.

A flour mill is needed in the Pecos valley. Strong inducements are held out to an enterprising miller.