200 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Steel tank, holding 300 barrels, and the expense for this, with the actual 

 cost of irrigating pipes and putting them down makes up the thousand 

 dollars. So, really, the irrigating plant for these eight or ten acres has 

 only cost us about |500, and we are able now to have it extended at a 

 small cost to take in ten more acres. At a cost of $700 we shall be able 

 to irrigate twenty-five acres. 



At first we were in doubt as to how to secure water. We had the 

 river, near the garden, that would supply us with water, and we knew 

 that at a depth of a few feet we could get a well. It was a question 

 whether to obtain the water from the river, or drive or dig a well from 

 which the water could be pumped with a windmill o-r a gasoline or hot-air 

 engine. Finally we fixed on the plan of going to Cedar river for our 

 water and using the steam fire-pump in the boiler-house, to which a water 

 pipe already ran from the river. 



We had to lay a main 1,200 feet to the boiler-house. We used for that 

 three-inch pipe, which will furnish a sufficient supply for twenty-five 

 acres, and we arranged to distribute the water from hydrants at the high- 

 est points. Had the garden been with a slope in any single direction, we 

 could have easily brought the water to one edge of the garden, and have 

 carried it to other parts through furrows. The garden is nearly level, 

 except that there are a number of elevations three or four feet above the 

 general level, and to cover the entire surface we had to locate hydrants 

 on each of these elevations, and therefore we had to run three lines of 

 pipe, covering the surface of the garden, east and west, and another along 

 the west side. We then located hydrants, 100 feet apart, along each of 

 these lines. We took 100 feet as the distance, because we have many 

 small plots, some of which we wish to irrigate and some to leave without 

 water, and to control the water for this purpose we thought it best to 

 have them 100 feet apart. 



We had, in applying the water, to select one or two of perhaps three or 

 four methods. You will find that through the west, for their wheat and 

 alfalfa fields, and many of their other crops, they practice flooding. 

 Where the land is nearly level, they form small dykes, and admit the 

 water to these squares, covering the ground from two to eight inches deep 

 with water, flooding the surface. This would not be desirable in a 

 garden; it is out of the question, in fact. 



Then we could use the furrow method of applying the water; that is, 

 make shallow furrows at intervals of from three to ten feet, across the 

 garden, and run streams of water into the furrows and allow it to soak 

 out into the soil. 



There was also sub-irrigation or running the water in tiles. In testing 

 this we tried two methods. In one case we placed the tiles at a depth of 

 one foot, and in another had them barely covered. For sub-irrigation we 

 made use of 2i-inch drain tiles placed, as a rule, with their ends close 

 together, but we took pains to have the curved sides of the tiles up, and 

 thus we had openings at the under side of each joint. You will find that 

 nearly all tiles, in baking, become bent, and if you take advantage of this 

 curve, there will be small openings between them. Have these openings 

 as even in size as possible. The water will soak out at each of these 

 joints, and a line of tile 100 feet in length can be easily supplied with a 

 half -inch stream of water; in fact, the great trouble in sub-irrigation is 



