The Great Irrigation Ambition

J. D. McIntyre, the chief engineer of the most extensive system of irrigation canals and storage reservoirs ever undertaken in the northwest, arrived in the city on Monday last and at once placed two full corps of engineers in the field to run lines. The company which will prosecute this work was organized in August and consists of a number of members of the board of directors of the Northern Pacific railroad, Chas. A. Gregory, Wm. J. Bryson and G. A. Young, of Chicago and Walter N. Granger, J. D. McIntyre and Albert Kleinschmidt, of Helena. They have entered into a contract and purchased over a million acres of N.P.R.R. land in Washington and Montana. The most active field of operation at present will be Yakima in Washington territory. In Yakima country it is proposed to irrigate all of the lands from the Yakima river at North Yakima to the Columbia. Engineer McIntyre says that employment will be given to hundreds of men and teams. The benefits which will accrue to North Yakima are estimated to be greater than would be gained by the building of a railroad, as several hundred thousand acres of land will be opened for cultivation. It is estimated that one of the results of these canals will be to more than double the population of Yakima county within the next year.