Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1928-11-08, Page 3Irrigating Dream Comes True By FRANCIS FLOOD A few years ago I was a home- steader in Wyoming trying- to build an irrigated .",term out of: a collection of shale hills and bogging alkali bottoms On which the government had dared us to make a living. Sometimes, after .a hard day's week herding ditch, water down the steep sides' of my little alfalfa fields, Bale of it washed., and the other half high and dry, 1 would clump over to the shack of a neighbor as dejected and as ragged as 1, throw my shovel and rubber boots into a, corner and discuss farm- ing in general and irrigation in par- ticular. We would pity ourselves, that much was sure. Then we would compare our rough, raw little fields lying some- where above or below the crooked canals that wound about among. the .sagebusii hills with our idea of what a real irrigation district Should be. Eventually, before the evening was over, we would enthusiastically pic- ture in our imagination the perfect • project, the gum boot farmer's para- dise, and describe it in detail to get our minds off our own. When Jim and I reached the Sen- nar Dam across the • Blue Nile in the .Anglo-Egyptian Sudan—believe it or not—we saw it, just as I had specified. 'There is the irrigation engineer"'s dream come true; there is the gum boot farmer's paradise. First we visited the dam itself, that Gluge concrete barrage that stops the 1 .Nile in its tracks: Nearly two miles Song from end to end, it takes an hour to walk the length and back of this great highway across a conquered river. On the one side presses the captive lake, fifty miles long, sufficient -water to supply the needs of the city of New York for a period of two years. Below, on the other side is the torrent loosed through the roaring :sluices and boiling away so 'tar, far down that even the comic opera don- keys shambling along the highway on the crest are as frightened as the ,stern Sudan squires whose bales of freight they bear, as nervous as the clucking women and the bare, black ,children scurrying like fate along the -centre of those concrete heights. breakfast," ordered this merry en- gineer front Morrie England, and he shouted toward the brick kitchen in the rear, "Boy, pass breakfast for three:' Then he considered a moment, look- ed us over again, muttered half to himself, "No meal for five months,' and shouted again to the kitclien. pass breakfast for five." My American accent and his Tag- lisp ear had confused "retail" for "meal." I put him right; "But never mind correcting your kitchen boY," Jimsuggested. "Let hint carry oft." "You surely didn't think we'd lead no meal for five months did you?"' I questioned, you've "No. And I don't believe crossed Africa on those motorcycles either`," he admitted. "The' one lie earned your breakfast and I thought 'two such big ones deserved a double order." We were only ninety miles from the postoffice in Khartoum, where we were sure there was a sidecar full of mail, our first since we had left the west coast fringe of civilization nearly five months before and yet this English engineer was begging us to stop a clay with him so he could show us his irri- gation project. He succeeded, and it was worth the delay. Considering how badly I wanted my mail that shows what I think of the famous Gezira irrigation district. That afternoon our friend and a fel- low•engineer took us over as much of the project as they could. We couldn't see it all. The main Gezira, area is about 55 miles long with an average width of some 15 miles, running par- allel with the river, the whole as level as a football field. Since it was al- most a desert before the water was applied it was entirely free from vege- tation and little or no clearing had to be done. This block of 300,000 acres which is at present under irrigation. is only one-tenth of the three million level acres in the Gezira between the Blue and White Niles which may easily be brought under irrigation cu- tivation later. Briefly, the history of the Gezira development is this: Attention was first called to the possoiblity of irri- gating this great plain betweeu the two . branches of the Nile in 1904. First it was clear that existing native rights could not be protected unless a f ,land was available. This v. -as of d ownership c difficult because y,.►,S SECURED 4,000 AUTOGRAPHS Collection made by Antonio Hauptman, an Italian, includes 60 maharajas, 51 cardinals, 300 diplomats and 400 princes and kings. Their Majesties 1 New Connecting Link •arml: BRIDGE OVER THE TYNE OPENED BY KING GEORGE One of the finest bridges in England has been erected at Newcastle -on -Tyne at a cost of $6,250;000, cortege is seen passing over it. Inset: Their majesties at the opening.• acre. The land is then re -allotted to, The rows are about 36 inches apart the actual owners who are cuitivat- and the plants at 20 inch intervals. ing tenants on plots of 30 acres each,! The seed is sown on the tops of the as near their original holdings as! ridges. When picking is finished, all possible. The theory is that no man! cotton stalks are cut down and burn- -can handle more than one 30 acre ed as a ieldprecaution aboutagainst pounds of longstaple lit cotton Per acre This unit. If he originally held 90.acres y Delhi to Invite Bids onAir Line Across India Egypt to Karachi Section, - First Link of Route, May Start Service in April, 1929 Simla, India. -Al important stage has been readied in the, development of an air -mail route across India by the approval of the Assembly's Stand- ing Finance Committee to the govern- ment of India's proposals to calf for bids soon for the operation of three main sections, A weekly plane serv- ice between Egypt and Karachi, sub- sidized by the British government, is expected to be established by April, 1929. An internal service, in three sec- tions, front' Karachi to Rangoon, is the next objective. It is intended that this shall form a connecting link in the England -Australia air route. The three sections will be: Iiarachi. to Delhi, Delhi to Calcutta, and Cal- cutta to Rangoon. Preparations for the ground organization between Kar- achi and Calcutta are well advanced and it is ,understood a start will be made on the Calcutta -Rangoon section as soon as sufficient funds are in hand. Bring London Nine Crays Nearer As soon as the through route from Karachi to Rangoon is established, the air mail from England will be delivered in Delhi in seven days, at Calucutta in eight days and at Ran- goon in nine days, compared with six- teen, seventeen and nineteen' days by Bene its the present sea route. The sage relishes what is without It is anticipated that the Karachi savour. He avenges the injuries he Delhi section will be ready by the fall receives by benefits. Fie begins by of 1929. Three -engined aircraft of the easy things when he meditates diffi-1 approved British type of construction will be used. The government of In - cult things; by small things when he I dia proposes, if funds permit, even - meditates great. toady to extend the London -Karachi he may nominate his sons or relations s aP a li I service to Bombay The Lap of Fortune The Finance Committee, in agree - as tenants he the other two units: makes d addition to the world cot -1 Ben Franklin said: "To pe thrown ,ing to the proposals, suggested that, So far, each, the 8,000 tenancies of be30en, ton procof E ti some 80 million upon one's own resources is to following the English practice, the acres byowners about mse have behe pounds of Egyptian cotton annually, f pinto the very lap of fortune." taken by themselves and the and the development of the Gezira remaining 3.000 by people already has only begun. What effect this and resident in the area. ! similar, and even larger, irrigatlou It is a good proposition for the len- projects farther dowu the Nile may 1 ant -oozier. He gets 50 cents per sere have on the la S. el flea surplus pro -1 rent and is entitled to farm 30 acres; duction remains to ?se seen. At any as rear as possible to his .original .rate 11 is wei'1 worth watching. • Easy -Going People grain for his own consumption. In- Mere good nature is not the end for stead of relying on the precarious which the world exists. Nor is it; rains ya gets regular water for which the law by which we should coutrol he pays only as much as if he lived is a "good-na- The royal land. On each 30 acres he may grow tel, acres of cotton and ten acres of green crop for cattle or along the Nile bank and we were our conduct. There There are a million tons of concrete in the big barrage designed to pass 15,000 cubic yards of water per second through the sluices, or twenty per cent. more than the greatest known discharge of the Blue Nile in its flood. And yet one man can weigh the water gout and control the flow of that entire stream as easily as a housewife opens the faucet in her kitchen sink. , A main canal, 100 miles long, leads off from the reservoir above the dam and marches straight sand true the length of the great project, with a steady fail, just as the ground slopes itself, about four or five inches to the mile. Leading oft from the main canal are five distributing canals and, strictly at right angles to these, as straight and as regular as a city's streets run the major channels, one every 300 yards, each designed to water about 90 acres of land, .or, enough* for three 30 -acre uuits. For miles and miles and miles, Jim and I rode our motorcycles over this flat and level land, the whole checked off into a perfect chart of even, regu- lar squares by the blackbanksofthe canals. There are no fine homes, no fences, and no trees. There are no paved highways, no school houses, and no green grass. It is all a now coun- try. Its future is all before it just as ten thousand , years of a dry, dead. past are behind it. We found one , neat little frame bungalow beside a huge headgate and stopped, early in the morning to in- quire the road to Khartoum, A young Englishman in the brisk uniform of ail injure cane to the door. I ex` $b0,000,000 which inchides canalize- plainer in the best English that my tion. if someone were to dig three. American education could produce canals from New York to San. that we had just driven those two rrancisco the total length would be a 'battered old motorbikes "Rough" and about equal to the mileage of the "Tumble" all the way front the west canals and field channels on the coast of Africa and were in a hurry Gezira, scheme, or 9,386 miles, . "beactise use we ha r to u m boat h toaril get forty e totook Y m n 0 i t rf eve haven't had any snail at all for five Th g an- 'e Uaice months and we're going to get'some leaise front the registered owners o th"re," all land Within the scheme at riot Ou the portage from ICingsuiei "You'll come right iia here and 1tave 1 hietat rental, oteabOtit. •ftiti". cont per Albert National Park, SaskaAhewatt. tiw water getting it from an ox -drawn fused" tolerance of evil in other men, wheel. He has the best cotton seedy which we help them to their sins, distributed to him, r e gats cash ads; and become their passive accom- vances at low interest and he gets plowing machinery to plow his land.1, plices. There is "good-natured" ly- He gets expert supervision in his cul- lug, which seems to say what is plea- tivating and his marketing. In fact, sant rather than what is true, and it he gets so much that he is buying undermines social truthfulness. There fine automobiles and living on a scale is a "good-natured" endurance of en - a thousand times higher than his an- croacliment upon rights, which we 1 cestors have ever lived before him. should guard, not for our own sake so The soil of the Gezira is a stiff loam much as for that of society. And containing over fifty per cent. of clay. there is a "good-natured" avoidance It rapidly becomes impervious to'' of honesevils, testimony redagainst iai s tus the water so that no seepage - occurs world's to I through the canal banks. The land is', mere ciphers in the battle for the cultivated by machinery well ahead; kingdom of God. There is need for of sowing time. This is done by the I ali the really "good -nature." the syndicate with cable plows drawn: courtesy, the cheerfulness, the broth - back and forth between two tractors,; erless, we can muster. But for this one at either end of the field. The' vicious "good -nature" which seeks seed is a long staple Egyptian cot', only the pleasant and the easy, ton exclusively and is dibbled in at • neither earth nor heaven has room the rate of about 20 pounds per acre., or need. no native really owned any land but yet he had a historical right to culti- vate certain little patches because his fathers had done so before him. Fur- thermore the plain had never been surveyed and the whole was so level and so regular there were no land- marks or boundary stones by which the natives could even identify their claims. It was surveyed and at every minute of latitude and longitude iron poles were erected with cross vanes on which are stamped the degrees and miuutes of latitude and longitude. Traveling over the flat Gezira is like sailing on the ocean and we navigated in minutes and degrees in exactly the same manner. The management of the area was entrusted to the Sudan plantations Syndicate. The Sudan government were to be respoueible for the financ- ing and building of the dam and the major' canalization: The syndicate became responsible for the minor canalization, management of the whole enterprise and for financing the tenants. The tenants were to supply the labor as cultivators. The cotton crop was to be divided into portions of 35 per cent. to the gov- ernment, 25 per cent. to the syndic- ate, and 40 per cent. to the tenant, and all other crops to the tenant. The Brush government guaranteed an original loan of $15,000,000 for financ- ing. The darn was started in 1914 but. was stopped on. the outbreak of the war. After the war the loan was doubled and construction started again. The final full cost was about Enjoying Autumn Glory of Canada's New Park SY w V 9 7Rni 0 a EA��-� .�;.,�. people live on the ra BEAUTIES OF NATURE IN THE CANADIAN WEST no Lake in the 'Prince it is©untteilynot unecotnomicnandnitely; How must putationt of the reputation they might Lolg sooner or later Cache to cat tstrolrliew have made. -0. W., Holmes, Canada's Native Clowns QUEBEC BABY BEARS BATTLED FOR A LOLLYPOP "Kid" Cub and "Battling" Bruin. two young bruising bears, who staged a one -round bout before cheering tourists in northern Quebec. Ringside seats were free. The purse, a lollypop, was awarded to "Kid" Cub. "The Black Bear is just a sort of canny, backwoods clown, wishing for nothing but a full tummy and complete freedom from contact with men armed with rifles. In fifteen years spent in the wilderness I have had more than my share of opportunities to get acquainted with Bruin, and to my mind be is not a bad neighbor, except for his ingrained propensity for investi- gating nvestigating camp storerooms. At thisi"he is altogether too adept, and he goes at his work like a group of Bolsheviks looting the home of a wealthy member of the bourgeoisie. 'When a bear gets through smashing around in a lum- ber -camp storeroom, the easiest method of cleaning up the wreck is to touch a match to the works acid stand clear. "Bruin is on his toes all the time. There is no record of any hunter ever finding a bear asleep, except during the period of annual hibernation. In his normal state of health he is fully as alert as a modern burglar alarm, and he can get away from a standing start in a manner that would turn Nurmi green with envy." --Kenneth Lee in "Forest and Stream." Panic-MMl ongers government should participate profits over and above a certain per- Bry ngwyn James in the fall Malli tentage after malting due provision (London): It is the commercial and' for depreciation. industrial panic -mongers who have I To Acid Ceylon Later done si much in recent years to retard 1 the recovery of British trade and .18- I Ceylon, in the near future, wili 'te dustry from the blows inflicted on it , linked up with existing air -mail serv- by the war and its consequences. ices, according to official advices, Their bletheriugs have been broad- ; which say a connection will be made cast to the ends of the earth, and their , first with America and subsequently sour bread has been cast upon the i with Australia, In the former case, waters—and unfortunately £onllc1 after1 it ishoped to effect a saving of one many days. Is it a matter for wonder i to three clays, while, with the latter that in many parts of the Empire and country, a reduction of approximately in any in many foreign countries there is consequently. a tendency to believe that the 'Old Country is done for? National Extravagance Saturday Review (London): It is one of the standing wonders of the day that the luxury trades of Great Britain continue to flourish, while her basic indtistries flounder in :he slough of depression. Those cnterpris`es on which the real and ultimate wealth of the nation 'depend are sunk deep in distress, but the extras, the frills and fancies increase and multiply exceed- iiigit•. This situation of all Jane and three days is expected. The postal authorities in Simla are waiting to avail themselves of the Cairo -Karachi air service, but at pros-, ent the saving of time will not be appreciable to Columbus owing to the long railway journey between Dham- ishkodi ,and Karachi. Two Hands Flee Girl•--•-,"LSt'S drive iii the park." Boy—"Naw, let's pa..l: in the drive." —Ghost. Reputation