10 Fish and Game Warden. [Bull. No. 1. 



ARTIFICIAL PONDS IN GENERAL. 



The artificial pond is usually made by constructing a dike 

 or dam across a draw or a piece of sloping ground, or across a 

 small stream, or by inclosing a piece of ground that can be 

 supplied with water. This ground that is to be used for pond 

 purposes may be located on high lands or even near a hilltop 

 as well as in the valleys and sloughs of low lands. It is to this 

 class of pond that we desire to give our especial attention, for 

 many of them have been constructed in the state of Kansas, 

 and undoubtedly thousands more will be constructed in the 

 near future. 



The water supply of a pond is an all-important thing, and 

 before the pond is built the source, permanency and possible 

 amount of the water supply should be well considered. The 

 water supply may be directly dependent upon the rain and 

 snow fall. In such cases the water flows from natural drain- 

 age sheds into the pond basin and such ponds are usually 

 called sky ponds. In other ponds the basin may be fed by 

 springs, creeks or other bodies of water that may be turned 

 into them by means of ditches or through pipe lines. 



Good artificial ponds, constructed where they can be prop- 

 erly managed, can be made to serve a number of purposes, one 

 of the chief of which is to be used as reservoirs for the storage 

 of a vast amount of water that now runs out of the country. 

 This water, flowing in swollen streams through and out of the 

 state, does little if any good, and in many cases does a vast 

 amount of damage. 



WATER STORAGE POSSIBILITIES, 



If there were a small pond or lake of the average size of an 

 acre on each section of land in the state of Kansas, it would 

 amount to over 80,000 acres of water. If the ponds could be 

 made to average four acres in size, or an acre of water for each 

 quarter section of land, it would amount to 320,000 acres of 

 water. If these ponds and reservoirs could be made to average 

 four acres of water to each quarter section of land, the number 

 of acres of water would be 1,280,000 — enough to cover 8000 

 quarter sections of land, or 2000 sections. In surface area 

 this water, if combined in one body, would be equal to a lake 

 400 miles long and 5 miles wide — a body of water large enough 

 to stretch across the state of Kansas from east to west. 



Figure the volum.e of water that one acre would conserve at 

 an average depth of three feet, and then it will be possible to es- 

 timate the vast quantity of water that could be held in the state 

 if an average of from one to five acres of water could be 

 stored on each quarter section of land. It does not seem un- 

 reasonable to consider this as among the possibilities of the 

 future development of the state, particularly in the central and 

 western parts, where the contour of the gradually sloping lands 

 makes it possible to build ponds and reservoirs for holding sur- 



