224 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



300 barrel tank, which is elevated thirty feet above the f^roiind. 

 Two 3" discharge pipes run out from the tank in different directions, 

 and the water is conveyed over the land through about 5,000 feet of 

 different sizes of pipes, which are required, by the sprinkling system, 

 to cover all parts of the eleven acres. 



One and one-fourtn inch iron hydrants are located along these 

 pipes ninety-five feet apart. Water is distributed with sprinklers 

 attached to ^4 " galvanized iron pipes, made in sections of fifty feet, 

 consisting of three pieces twelve and one-half feet long and made 

 flexible by connecting them together with four sections of rubber 

 hose three feet long. In applying the water, I use twenty-six of 

 these sprinklers, each of them covering a space sixteen feet to 

 twenty-five feet in diameter, according to the pressure of the loca- 

 tion. The water is allowed to run through each sprinkler from 

 thirty to forty minutes in one place and then changed to a new 

 location. About one-third of the time of one man is required to 

 place these sprinklers in position and change them to new places. 



The pump has a capacity of one hundred gallons per minute, 

 and when the tank is full and the hydrants open the water is forced 

 through these sprinklers as fast as it is pumped into the tank. Two 

 acres per day can be irrigated in this way, covering the land with 

 water one inch deep. The quantity of gasoline consumed by the 

 engine during a day of twelve hours was about ten gallons, which 

 at 12 cents per gallon amounted to $1.20 per day, or 60 cents per 

 acre. 



When the plant was first constructed, in 1898, I distributed the 

 water by running it through V shaped wooden troughs laid across 

 the rows, and through openings in these troughs the water ran out 

 and down the furrows between the rows, but I found that the water 

 soaked into the soil to such an extent that at least six inches in depth 

 were required before all the land would be fully covered. About 

 28,000 gallons are required to cover an acre one inch in depth, and 

 in order to irrigate an acre by this method at least 168,000 gallons 

 of water would be required, or nearly three days' constant pumping. 



After using this method one season, I became convinced that 

 the conditions and requirements in this locality were entirely dift'er- 

 ent from what they were in the arid regions of the west and south- 

 west, and that one incn of w^atcr applied at the proper time, in a 

 proper manner, with adequate cultivation after such application, 

 would keep the soil in fine condition for at least ten days, and that 

 three such applications would keep all plants, shrubs and trees in 

 a thrifty growing condition and carry them safely through a pretty 

 severe Minnesota drouth. 



