At later drawings it was not unusual to dispose of a hundred thousand acres at an "opening."
Land and water on this project sold for twenty-five dollars and a half an acre. For irrigated land that is regularly plowed late in February the price—to be paid in ten annual instalments—was so low that the promoters could not find adjectives enough to describe the quality of the bargain, yet the buyers held off like scared colts.
Today the land of four sections, sage-brush ten years ago, is worth more than the total cost of supplying two hundred thousand acres with water. The city of Twin Falls stands on these four sections.
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From the dome of the Capitol, at Boise, the view embraces the varied natural resources which are the basis of the expanding future of the "Gem State": forested, mineralized, water-bearing mountain ranges; the wide grain fields of the dry farmer: the realm of the stockman; the greening valleys where comfortable homes are growing on twenty-acre irrigated tracts, linked by power wires and electric cars
The settlers on the Twin Falls tract have paid for their water-rights, manage and own the system. In 1913, according to the water-master's report, one hundred and forty-nine thousand acres were under cultivation. The average yield on forty-five thousand alfalfa acres exceeded four tons of hay to the acre; potato fields that ran five hundred bushels to the acre were common; sixty bushels of wheat, a hundred of oats, aroused no comment. Remember, this land went begging at twenty-five dollars an acre.
The cost of the Twin Falls dam and canal system was double the original estimate, yet the promoters' townsite profits were of such attractive proportions that capital in ever increasing volume flowed to the gray sage-brush plain. Projects multiplied, grew in size, price and audacity of conception; railroad branch lines were built, towns sprang up, actual settlers and speculative buyers came in droves to partake of the sweet honey of cheap irrigated land. Twin Falls became a synonym for profit to both seller and buyer. Within a short time forty projects were launched in Idaho under the Carey Act, more than two million acres under them were segregated from the public domain, actual construction was started on half of them, a total of twenty-six million dollars was spent.
Dolorous critics would have us believe that this vast amount of money, the great totals of human toil it represents were expended on the desert to no purpose, adding
