TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 211 



Mr. Morrill: Professor Tracy, in speaking of Garden City, I think 

 there is one thing that you perhaps omitted to mention. You know the 

 conditions there. Their water supply is almost inexhaustible, and only 

 from twelve to eighteen feet below the surface. It is a subirrigated 

 country. I know that I have seen the plains near the Arkansas river, 

 with the sand driven over them in clouds by the wind; then there would 

 come a drove of cattle to the spot, three to five hundred head of them. 

 They would stop and soon be drinking the water around their feet. They 

 would leave that and go on, and in two hours the sand would be flying 

 again. You will understand that that is the case in Garden City, that the 

 power required is slight. 



Mr. Tracy: The supply is apparently inexhaustible, but hardly so 

 near the surface as reported. Most of the wells need to be dug twenty 

 or thirty feet. Most have to raise water twenty feet to bring it to the 

 surface. Their reservoir is usually nine feet high, making thirty feet to 

 raise the water. 



Mr. Collar: There are some lands not susceptible to irrigation, o How 

 can we find out what is best to irrigate? 



A. Every man will have to determine that for himself, from informa- 

 tion gained from books, and at such gatherings as this, and so on. 



Prof. McCleur: There is one place in our state (Illinois) where irri- 

 gation is being tried to a considerable extent — at the asylum for insane 

 at Kankakee. It was started this year. Their source is the Kankakee 

 river. They had their own pumping plant for supplying the asylum with 

 water; and for irrigating, the pipe was simply extended to the farm. 

 They did not do any experimenting; they had a man from the west, famil- 

 iar with irrigating, to do it for them. I happened to be there this fall, 

 when ihey were putting water on one field, and was much surprised at 

 th'j apparent amount of water they used in irrigating the cabbage field. 

 They had the rows banked up and were running a furrow of water 

 between every two rows; the rows were perhaps forty inches long; and 

 while the\ did not know how much water they were putting on, it could 

 not have been less than six to eight inches at one application. I asked 

 the man about this water, earlier in the season. He said that when they 

 began they put on enough water to start the tiles to running, and that 

 means a good deal of water. They had watered their fields from one to 

 three times. I was there in September. That is not very often, but 

 they said it was often enough. They didn't keep an account of the 

 results, but, in a general way, there was no doubt that their crop of this 

 year was at least double that of last year, the two seasons being some- 

 what similar. 



Q. Do you mean that for an entire covering of the surface? 



A. Yes. 



Q. That would mean six or seven thousand barrels to the acre. 



A. It means lots of water, but the water was covering half the ground, 

 as I saw it. The furrows were forty rods long and the water standing in 

 these furrows the full length; and the man didn't know exactly, but it 

 looked as though it had been standing there some time, and you couldn't 

 have gone on to the ground at all. 



