48 



realizino- in most instances the wide variation between the amount 

 they use and the amount they claim, will, when the test comes, be 

 loath to accept a smaller right, although it ma}^ be conclusivelj'^ 

 proved that they need no more. 



APPLICATION OF WATER TO CROPS. 



PREPARING THE LAND. 



In Montana large expenditures have been made in building canals, 

 bnt the skill which has ])een exercised in convoking water has not ])een 

 extended to its proper application to the soil. This is usuall}- attri- 

 buted to the fact that irrigation has not been long practiced in Mon- 

 tana, and the time of the agricultural classes has been occupied mainly 

 with the diversion and conveyance of water, leaving them little time 

 to put their fields in proper condition to receive water. This is true 

 of many of the now districts. The settler who is striving to make a 

 home in an arid country' on a small amount of capital can not well 

 aiiord to spend i^lO per acre for a water right and an additional $10 

 per acre in leveling, grading, and ditching his land. There is no valid 

 excuse, however, for the people of the older-irrigated section continu- 

 ing the use of the crude systems of pioneei' days. 



The methods of preparing land for irrigation in Montana do not differ 

 materialh' in even widely separated sections. There is less tall sage- 

 brush than in Utah or Idaho, and there is a larger and more uniform 

 growth of native grasses. In old irrigated sections, like Gallatin 

 Valley, there is little unbroken land under the ditches. The usual 

 preparation is therefore confined to the surface of fields wdiich have 

 been cultivated and sown to crops for many years. Gang plows, disk 

 plows, sulky plows, and the ordinary walking plows are all more or 

 less used. In the work care is taken to leave the surface as level as 

 possible after the plow and to avoid the making of dead furrows. If 

 the surface is rough a disk harrow is used to break up the lumps. 

 It is leveled and smoothed with one of the many kinds of home-made 

 levelers, or with one of the patent levelers now on tlie market, and 

 afterwards the seed is drilled in some 3 inches deep. 



A method of preparing new land, somewhat novel in Montana, has 

 of late ])cen introduced in Beaverhead County. Much of the irrigable 

 land of this county is comparatively smooth and level and covered with 

 low sagebrush and rabbit brush. A supply ditch is first dug across 

 the upper end of the field to l)e plowed and smaller ditches are run 

 down the steepest slopes from the supply ditch. By means of these 

 supply and lateral ditches the new land is thoroughly irrigated, and 

 wdion the top layer of soil has sufiiciently dried out to pulverize freely 

 it is plowed, disked, and leveled. The method is descri})ed by J. E. 

 Morse, of Dillon, Mont., as follows: 



