PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 93 



the knowledge that comes from experience, are naturally turned to for 

 information on irrigation. 



Being interested, both as a fruitgrower, in the problem of how best to 

 get water on our orchards, and as a manufacturer and dealer iu windmills, 

 tanks, and other water-supply goods, I determined, soon after the meet- 

 ing of this society at South Haven, last summer, to attend the assembly 

 of the National Irrigation congress which met in Denver early in Septem- 

 ber; and as this has been alluded to as a reason why I should undertake 

 to speak on this subject, you will excuse me for assuming that some here 

 may be as ignorant as myself, while attempting to relate a few of the 

 things seen and learned there. 



The National Irrigation congress is, as its name indicates, a body of 

 men interested in means and methods of practical irrigation, coming from' 

 all the states and territories where interest enough is felt to appoint dele- 

 gates, none, however, but regularly appointed delegates being allowed to 

 vote or take part in their discussions, except by courtesy or common con- 

 sent. Delegates may be appointed by the governor of any state or by 

 any state society or organization cultivating the soil, and therefore inter- 

 ested in irrigation — such, for instance, as this society — and a certificate of 

 such appointment would constitute proper credentials. Three annual 

 meetings of this congress have been held, the first in California in 1892, 

 the second in Utah, and the third in Denver, Colorado. The fourth is to 

 be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, some time in 1895. The time of the 

 congress is occupied with papers and discussions on topics connected with 

 irrigation, some of them being quite spirited, especially on resolutions 

 pertaining (as many of them did) to legislation, both state and national, 

 that was either really needed or supposed to be. 



Adjacent to the building where the meetings were held was an exhibi- 

 tion of machinery and appliances for raising and distributing water for 

 irrigation, consisting of windmills and pumps, steam and gasoline engines, 

 tanks, and other devices, each being the greatest thing in the world, 

 according to the statements of the exhibitors. 



But one of the most interesting features of all was what they called the 

 itinerary of the congress, or what might be called the excursions for the 

 purpose of witnessing the actual working of irrigation in various parts of 

 the state. On one of these excursions a special train took about two hun- 

 dred of the delegates to Greeley, in the northern part of Colorado, one of 

 the greatest (if not the greatest) potato producing points in the entire 

 country. Carriages were at the station to take all, free of charge, where- 

 ever they wished to go, and we rode for miles over a country where nearly 

 entire farms were devoted to potato-growing, ' and where everything, 

 although in the midst of a so-called arid region, was fresh and green, 

 much more so than in the humid (?) state from which I had come. 



The method of irrigation at Greeley is the canal, or, as it is sometimes 

 called, the gravity ditch system, water being taken from some place higher 

 than the land to be irrigated, usually several miles up the river or stream 

 that supplies it, and being conducted in a canal around the bases of the 

 hills, and the tops of depressions, keeping it at the proper elevation to 

 insure a good but not too rapid flow, and in a direction gradually diverg- 

 ing from the main stream, until it is often several miles from the latter 

 and flows at an elevation very much higher, and perhaps several thousand 

 acres are embraced between the two, the general slope being toward the 

 main stream, although this slope is not, as some suppose, always even, but. 



