out with a six-inch bore. It is claimed that the wooden pipes last as long as the iron pipes. One town has a line of pipes seven miles long that, with all connections, cost but $2,000.

Additional artesian wells are being bored in many parts of North Dakota, the water to be used for irrigation purposes. The city well at Mayville flows 9,000 barrels every twenty-four hours, and has already filled up a large lake in the park, the overflow going into Goose river.

Irrigation is making more rapid progress in Northwestern Texas than in any other part of the plains country at this time. Texas was one of the last to begin to experiment with irrigation but she has a wonderful supply of underflow waters and there is destined to be, within a very few years, some rich developments in agriculture in what has been almost a desert.

POSSIBILITIES OF BEET SUGAR.

That the people of Nebraska appreciate the value of the sugar beet is indicated by the fact that arrangements are complete for a State Beet Sugar Convention, to be held at Lincoln within a few days now. The Salt Lake Tribune says: "The wires tell us that Russia last year had under cultivation 814,419 acres of sugar beets and that the yield was 717,558 tons of sugar. That at 3 cents a pound gives Russia over $40,000,000. Could that sugar have been raised in Utah, it would have been worth something over $70,000,000. need that much for Utah, but there is no possible sense, so long as this country is filled with idle men, in paying $100,000, 000 annually for foreign sugar. It is a sort of impeachment of our own intelligence."

We do not

Alameda county, California, did a very fair season's work in beet sugar, the quantity turned out by the sugar works at Alvarado being 5,400, 163 pounds; tonnage of beets worked, 27,385. Acreage for next season in the county is 3,550.

The Chino Champion re-asserts that the average price paid for Chino beets last year was $4.30 per ton; but the detailed figures of yield and amount paid for the whole, as given by the Champion, do not show that the price averaged above $4 per ton.

Sugar was a somewhat short crop taken as a whole in 1895, compared with 1894. The total production for 1895 is estimated at 7,117,700 tons, of which 4,000,000 tons

are beet sugar, showing that the beet industry has already surpassed that of cane in the sugar output of the world. The shortage from 1894 is estimated at 1,225, 000 tons, and 265,000 tons below the crop of the previous season.

Professor Hilgard of the University of California announces that there is absolutely no difference in the sweetening power of sugar made from sugar cane and beet

root.

BIG OIL FLOW IN KANSAS.

By

The Standard Oil Company having purchased the Kansas oil fields, they are to be worked to their full capacity. Reports from Neodesha, in Southeastern Kansas, say: "The historic days of Oil City, Pa., are to be repeated in sunny Kansas. the first of next week a still larger force of drillers will be on the ground and will average a rig a day until more than 200 new derricks will be added to the 120 now standing. Besides these forces of the Standard Oil Company, the Geiser Oil and Gas Company will soon have drillers at work, and, as stated by one of the companies interested, Southeastern Kansas will have 2,000 oil wells in less than six months."

The

The meeting of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture was largely attended and was, as usual, an event of great importance, the addresses, the papers read, and the reports of officers indicating the substantial advancement of the State. Irrigation is going forward with a rush. Extracts from some of the papers and reports are given elsewhere in this number. officers elected were: President, J. M. Potter, Peabody. Vice-president, A. C. Shinn, Ottawa. Secretary, F. D. Coburn, Topeka. Treasurer, Samuel T. Howe, Topeka. New members, Joshua Wheeler, succeeds himself; A. W. Smith, succeeds himself; J. H. Churchill of Dodge City; I. L. Diesem, succeeds himself; George W. Crane, of Sheridan succeeds A. C. Shinn.

PRODUCTION OF GARDEN SEEDS.

A. G. Tillinghast, of La Conner, Wash., the pioneer seed grower of Puget Sound, shipped 800 bushels of cabbage seed to Eastern seedsmen in September.

In the Big Bend country of Central Washington, says the Spokane Review, an industry has been quietly springing up that is entitled to a great deal more attention

than it has been given. It is the growing of all kinds of garden seeds, under contract with some of the biggest seed houses in the world, these houses having found the soil and climate there the best in America for that purpose.

AN AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION.

Several years of cultivation of Kaffir corn in Kansas have demonstrated that it is one of the most remunerative crops that can be grown under conditions existing in that State. That the farmers realize this fact is proven by the remarkable increase in the acreage shown by the reports of Secretary Coburn of the State Board of Agriculture for 1895. In 1893 the total Kaffir corn acreage was 46,911; in 1894, 95,237; and in 1895, 184,198.

There will be an agricultural revolution in Kansas this year. It will not only affect Kansas, but will spread all over the western half of Nebraska and Oklahoma. King Kaffir will contest every inch of an area equal to 105,000 square miles with King Corn, and the best judges of conditions prophesy that Kaffir will win.

MAKING ORANGE WINE.

At Riverside, Cal., a great building is now being erected for the purpose of working up the culled oranges into wine. There is always, even under the most favorable circumstances, a percentage of culls for which there has been no market at any price. The oranges are good, but, from some external defect, are not marketable. These oranges can be had at a very low price, of course, and any way of working them into marketable products, is, Redlands, of course, so much clear gain. Cal., will also have an orange winery.

NATIONAL IRRIGATION LEGISLATION.

The Secretary of the Interior recently sent to the Senate the report of the Board of Irrigation Executive Department. It was referred to the Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands, and ordered printed, and copies of the pamphlet can now be had. The report is of the greatest importance to irrigation interests. It shows the progress of the Board of Irrigation, including a statement of its organization; the existing legislation relative to irrigation; the operations of the various subdivisions; the principle which should govern subdivisions, and the list.

of official publications on irrigation. This latter list was given in detail in the January number of THE IRRIGATION AGE.

It is evident that the importance of irrigation is appreciated at the national capital, and that the Board of Irrigation is doing excellent work. Hon. Francis E. Warren, of Wyoming, who has been made chairman of the Senate standing committee on the subject, is the very man for the place, and that he will push forward all the urgently needed new legisla tion may well be expected.

ANNULLING LAND GRANTS.

The President has sent a special mes. sage to Congress urging the necessity for immediate legislation to extend the limit of time within which suits can be brought by the government to annul grants of public lands. He called attention to the numerous complications that had arisen between railroads as to grants that overlapped and the necessity for adjustment. The time in which suits can be brought expires March 3, 1896, and if the time limit were allowed to expire then a portion of the adjustment act would be rendered nugatory. The government, the President says, in conclusion, should not be prevented from going into the courts. and righting wrongs perpetrated by its agents.

THE COAST SALMON PACK.

The salmon pack, spring and fall season, for the entire Pacific coast, was 2.034,877. Of this amount Alaska furnished 637,000; British Columbia 512,877.

NEW MEXICO OFFERS HOMES TO THE ARMENIANS.

Amadeo Chaves, territorial superintend ent of public instruction for New Mexico, has addressed a letter to Edward F. Cragin, chairman of the Chicago executive committee to aid the Armenians, thanking him for his suggestion of colonizing these people in New Mexico and offering to supply the necessary land free of cost. Mr. Chaves considers Mr. Cragin's idea the happiest solution of the Armenian problem that has yet been advanced. He has looked into the character of the Armenians and regards them as a very desirable class of settlers. In Western Valencia county, along the line of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, Mr. Chaves has extended landed interests, and he proposes to place at the

disposal of the Chicago Armenian Association, free of cost, all the land they may desire to colonize, up to 500,000 acres. Or, if the committee deems best to locate the colonists on public lands, Mr. Chaves offers his services to enable the people to secure such locations.

A BUREAU OF LIVE STOCK INFORMATION

A memorial has just been presented to Congress which recites that the depression in the live stock industry of the West is due in a great measure to the indiscriminate way in which shipments are made to the four principal live stock marketsChicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Omaha. This memorial is signed by every Western exchange, and was forwarded by the executive committee of the National Exchange. It says there are no less than twenty-one States directly interested in shipping stock to one or more of the four markets mentioned, and that it is practically impossible for them to avoid glutting the market from time to time. The memorial asks Congress that some measures be provided whereby shippers can be informed (in an official and reliable way) of live stock receipts at these four centers from all of the twenty-one different States from day to day. If such a Bureau of Live Stock Information can be established, it will somewhat regulate the industry, and stock raisers and shippers will not be continually injuring their own interests and depressing the value of their own property.

WHY CATTLE RAISERS NEED PROTECTION.

Col. Albert Dean, agent of the Bureau of Animal Industry, has just received report of the number of cattle imported

into the United States from Mexico for the month of November last. There were brought in from all points, 47,345. This is 1,645 more than the entire importation of the last half of 1893, as far as there is any record.

WASHINGTON IMMIGRATION ASSOCIATION. The executive committee of the Washington State Immigration Association, just organized in the convention at Seattle,

H. L. Bolster, Spokane, vice-president; and the president was authorized to ap point a secretary and treasurer. The committee earnestly recommended that an appropriation of not less than $25,000 per annum should be made by the next Legislature for the promotion of immigration work.

THE WESTERN FRUIT INDUSTRY.

The Northwest Fruit Growers' Association includes Washington, Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia. The Bureau of Information recently organized has the folowing officers: President, W. S. Offner, Walla Walla; secretary, Willis Brown, Portland; directors, J. B. Holt, Wawawai; J. M. Gilbert, North Yakima; H. H. Spaulding, Almota; Emil Shanno, The Dalles. Headquarters are at Portland. Reports of the number of cars shipped to Eastern markets are to be received daily from all shipping points on the coast, including California, and then forwarded to local shipping points covered by the Association.

The Western Montana Fruit Growers' Association has been incorporated.

Colorado and New Mexico apples are breaking up the German apple monopoly in London. The Colorado and New Mexico product keeps better than the German. This year thousands of barrels will be shipped to England mainly by reason of a low rate lately obtained by growers, by which, in train load lots, apples can be exported from Denver to Liverpool at the same rate as from New York City.

The time is not far distant when England and quite a part of Western continental Europe will be supplied with fruit from the United States, and to quite an extent with fruit grown in the State of California and other Western States, where plums, nectarines, cherries, peaches, etc., are prouced of a character that will bear transporoation and delayed consumption with a not too serious deterioration in quality.

Stark Bros.' Orchard Bulletin remarks upon the great run given California fruit and vegetables in the Central, Western and Eastern States. It concludes an article with this: "Why not Ozark peaches and pears, adding Missouri or Arkansas, as the case may be, and why not Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee corn and tomatoes, as well as fruit? People of the Ozarks, Colorado and New Mexico are beginning

WESTERN MEASURES IN CONGRESS.

The House committee on public lands has decided to favorably report the bill introduced by Representative Wilson, of Idaho, to give 25 per cent of the proceeds of mineral lands in public land States for the support of schools of mines.

"A Free Home bill," making actual residence on railroad land grants unnecessary where lands had been fenced and improved, has passed the House.

On motion of Mr. Bowers, Republican, California, a bill has passed the House authorizing the Secretary of the Interior, under regulations to be fixed by him, to permit the use of right of way upon pub. lie lands for the purpose of generating electric power.

A NEW ENTERPRISE.

The Pawnee Pass Reservation Company has filed a request with the State Land Board of Colorado, to be sent to the Secretary of the Interior to segregate 300,000

acres of land in Logan county for reclamation under the arid land law. The company is represented by R. C. West, of Greeley. The proposition of the company is to construct a reservoir to hold 1,500,000,000 cubic feet of water, which will be sufficient to irrigate 300,000 acres of land. The ditch which will be constructed will be fifty miles long.

A CORRECTION.

Editor IRRIGATION AGE: In your biographical sketch of me in your issue of THE AGE for January, there is one error which I desire to correct, as it might work an injury to an engineer of high standing and of whom I have the highest opinion. It is the statement that I had exclusive charge of the Jurupa Canal and Vivienda Pipe Line in San Bernardino county, California. While these works were being designed and constructed I was associated in business with Walter C. Parmley, C. E., now of Peoria, Ill., and his share and responsibility in them were equal to my own. I make this statement in justice to Mr. Parmley, knowing that you did not publish it intending to slight him, and because I do not wish any more praise than justly belongs to me. Mr. Parmley was associated with me in the practice of irrigation engineering from 1887 to 1889 and I am proud of this fact and the fact that all work done by our firm was highly successful. F. C. FINKle.

GOOD ROADS IN ILLINOIS.

At the ninth annual convention of the county supervisors and commissioners of Illinois, held at Kankakee, the convention was organized permanently under the name of the State Association of Supervisors, County Commissioners and County Clerks. The chair was authorized to appoint a committee of nine to present recommendations of the convention to the next General Assembly. A. G. Woodbury, of Danville, spoke upon "Roads and Bridges." He said good gravel roads could be built for $1,500 a mile, macadam from $1,800 to $7,500. The passage of the Bogardus road bill was recommended; also that the road and bridge law be amended so as to increase the amount that may be levied from 20 cents on $100 valuation to 40 cents.

OFFICIAL ESTIMATES from the national capital do not correspond with the figures given out at the Western mining camps in regard to the production of the precious metals for the year just closed. It is announced from Washington that the Director of the Mint has received approximate estimates of the gold and silver product of the United States in 1895 from the mint officers and other agents employed to collect these statistics. The value of the gold and the number of fine ounces of silver produced by the several States and Territories is estimated to have been as follows:

but that especial facilities will be afforded for the presentation of coal, iron, copper, zinc, phosphates, and all other mineral properties, by bringing into immediate contact and intimate relations those who have mineral properties to sell or develop with those who have capital to make them productive."

TUNNEL MINING is being resorted to more than ever in the Cripple Creek region. The laws of Colorado allow tunneling under other men's property. Tunnels are now being run under Gold Hill mountain, on which are a number of the great producing mines.

A WELL-INFORMED WRITER states that the best known plan and safest for the invest ment of outside capital in mining is the formation of a close corporation for the actual purchase, development and operation of mining property.

STOCKS listed on the Chicago Mineral and Mining Board thus far are Isabella, Anaconda, Pharmacist, Portland, Union Gold, Favorite, Sleepy Hollow, Jefferson, Justice, Squaw Mountain, Finance and Rhyolite Gold.

THE values of the Colorado products for 1895 are claimed to be as follows: Gold, $18,605,000; silver, $14,259,049; copper, $877,492; lead, $2,955,114: coal, $6,665, 136; iron, $1,586, 200; steel rails, $1,348,500.

JOHN MACKIN and John J. Philbin, Jr., of Chicago, have bought gold lands near Prescott, Ariz., within fifty miles of the locality selected by N. K. Fairbank, Marshall Field, and Lyman Gage.

REPRESENTATIVES of all the mining exchanges of the West are attending the opening of the New York Exchange. A big excursion train was run from Denver.

THE Mechem Investment Company have opened a mining exchange in the Western Union Building, Chicago, confining the lists wholly to Colorado properties.