| OCR Text |
Show Blackfeet.-The act of March 1, 1907 (34 Stat. L., 1055) provides for allotting the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana and opening the surplus lands to settlement, and appropriates $300,000 toward con-structing irrigation systems for the allotted lands. Engineer'W. B. Hill has been making investigations of feasible canal projects on the reservation, in connection with Cyrus C. Babb, the local engineer of the Reclamation Service, but no report has been received. Crow.-The work of constructing additional laterals and otherwise completing the irrigation system on the Crow Reservation in Mon-tana has progressed steadily during the year. Flathead.-On April 26, 1907, the Director of the Reclamation Servtce was asked to make a preliminary investigatidn on the Flat-head Reservation in Montana to enable me to recommend the legisla-tion'needed for an adequate system of irrigation for the Indians to be allotted and for the lands to be disposed of under act of April 23, 1904 (33 Stat. L., 302). No report has yet been received from hi. Fort Hall.-The current Iqdian appropriation act (34 Stat. L., 1024) authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to acquire by purchase or condemnation all the lands in twelve townships in Idaho east of the Fort Hall Reservation which he shall deem necessary for con-structing a reservoir for storing water to irrigate lands on the Fort Hall Reservation and those ceded by the Fort Hall Indians, and also whatever lands, rights, and property he may consider necessary to the s u m s of such project. Supt. John J. Granville has been in charge of the preliminary work since early in March, and expects to complete all the surveys by winter, when the plans and final estimates can be worked up and passed upon by the engineers of the Indian and Reclamation services. Several complaints, however, have arisen which indicate that further legislation may be required, or possi-bly the whole project of the Blackfoot reservoir may have to be abandoned. Klamath.-The survey.; and estimates for the Modoc Point project on the Klamath Reservation in Oregon have been finished. The agreement with the Indians, ratified by the act of June 21, 1906 (34 Stat. L., 367), provides that about $130,000 of the amount appropri-ated in payment of the lands excluded from the reservation by an erroneous survey may be used by the Secretary of the Interior for irrigation, but that Indians whose allotments will not be benefited by such irrigation shall not bear any of its expense, but shall receive an equivalent in value in stock cattle or other articles. As only about, one-tenth of the allottees would be benefited by the Modoc Point proj-ect, and the estimated cost approximates $150,000, its construction witah the funds provided by the agreement is entirely out of the ques-tion, and a further appropriation by Congress seems to be the only recourse if the work is to be seriously undertaken. |
