frrigatioi]. 



IRRIGATION FOR MINNESOTA. 



S. M. EMERY, DIRECTOR MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION, 

 BOZEMAN, MONT. 



By a grievous oversight on the part of the early settlers in the 

 semi-arid states, the subject of irrigation has been badly treated. 



It was first considered as a misfortune that there should have 

 been a necessity for the artifical use of water to secure crops. 



The phenomenal crops were very gratifying to the farmer, and he 

 was always found to be willing to state his enormous yields, but he 

 gave unwilling assent to the pressed question as to whether he was 

 compelled to the artificial use of water. It was kept in the back- 

 ground, and none were found who were proud of the fact that there 

 was a compulsion to irrigate before one could reap. 



These points are being better understood, and thoughtful men see 

 in the future that it is only a question of time until the semi-arid 

 regions will be heavily taxed to augment the depreciated cereal 

 food supply of the hitherto great bread-producing states, whose 

 lands are fast losing their natural fertility from a wretched system 

 of injudicious cropping; and that this hope finds foundation mainly 

 upon their possibilities to keep up the normal fertility of their soil 

 froin the effects of irrigation. 



You are all familiar with the experiments of the German agri- 

 culturist, who took clean sand, washed it, then cut from its surface 

 by the action of acid all foreign matter, and using this prepared 

 sand as soil planted therein grain, which by the action of water 

 and light was developed to the milk stage, absolutelj^ being de- 

 prived of any nutrient except such as was afforded in the water : 

 and so it is with those who are observant; they know that in the irri- 

 gation season that the water is impregnated with vegetable matter, 

 swept into the streams and watercourses by the action of the floods, 

 originating from melted snow or the spring rains, and that the fine 

 sedimentary deposit enriches the soil and gives the young and 

 tender plants and rootlets that form of plant food best adapted to 

 their wants. 



Is irrigation practicable in Minnesota? Most assuredl}^, not over 

 the entire cultivated area of the state, simply for the reason that 

 there is not water that can be conducted out and onto all the sur- 

 face of the state. On the other hand, there are many farms through 

 which pass spring brooks that would afford water to much of the 

 bottom land through which they flow, of no value except in pastures 

 for stock purposes, and more of a nuisance than a blessing when 

 overflown by spring freshets. 



The amount of water required is far less than is generally sup- 

 posed, a miner's inch to the acre being the usual standard; though 



