TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 209 



Q. I would be glad if you can tell us, in your own case, of the number 

 of acres you planned for and the cost. 



A. In irrigating corn, we ran the water along the rows and between 

 rows. With this method of irrigation, we could water, I should think^ 

 two, three, or possibly four acres per day, where the land lies very well. 

 Just watering trees, I think we could, on our ground, water from five to 

 ten acres per day of young trees. Old trees take more time, water, and 

 work, and the cost of running the plant is from five to six dollars per day. 



Q. The point I was especially anxious about was the first expense. I 

 wish to compare it with other figures. For instance. Prof. Taft told us 

 that the amount properly chargeable to ten acres is |500. If you are 

 irrigating twenty acres, what would be the total cost of your plant, ready 

 to irrigate those twenty acres? 



A. We have a plant that is ready to irrigate about eighty acres. 

 Twenty are bottom land and sixty acres are upland. The cost thus far, 

 for engine, pump, and pipe and appliances, would fall between |900 and 

 |1,000. We obtained our engine cheap. It was a second-hand engine, 

 and the owner was willing to dispose of it reasonably, and we took a 

 mechanical engineer there and he said he could make it as good as new. 

 The repairs cost us more than the engine, but altogether the expense was 

 not much more than a third the cost of a new one, and we have 2,500 

 feet of pipe that will go cle ir to the other end f the farm;-and by the 

 use of this hose we can reach every foot of ground on the farm. 



Q. A thousand-dollar plant, then, with its appliances, can irrigate 

 eighty acres of land? 



A. Yes, but that does not include the work, and there is much work 

 that must be put into the first cost of the plant. If you could just have 

 a plant set down on your farm, that would be the cost of it. If you are 

 going to put it there yourself, it will cost something to do it. That 

 would be a considerable par-^ of the cost of the plant with us, because of 

 those experiments that I have mentioned, where we undertook to get our 

 water supply and save a few hundred feet of pipe. The experiment cost 

 us five or ten times what the pipe would. 



Mr. Fifield : At what time is it best to make this application for sur- 

 face irrigation — what time of day? 



A. O, any time of the day, but don't appl^ water to the foliage; we do 

 not do that at all. 



Q. Wouldn't you prefer, as a matter of economy, the latter part of 

 the day? 



A. We have followed the habit of having a cultivator follow after the 

 irrigation and keep the surface stirred; just as soon as the water sinks 

 out of the way, to have the surface soil stirred. 



Prof. Tracy: I would like to call attention to one fact, that I think 

 those who have not had experience lose sight of. It is not a question so 

 much of the contour of the land as it is of the character of the soil. 

 Many of our Michigan fields which lie level, people think because there 

 is a stream near they can bo easily and cheaply irrigated. That is not 

 necessarily so. So far as my observation has gone, upon the irrigated 

 plains of southwestern Kansas and California, the question of the char- 

 acter of the soil and its availability for irrigation is an important one. 

 and in order to decide what soil can be irrigated — well, it is a question 

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