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IRRIGATION. 51 
season when you need to irrigate most, in July and August when 
evaporation is greatest; but there is one way by which you can 
overcome this difficulty. It is possible to confine these waters of 
the early spring at the headwaters of our streams, as is being done 
now. The government calls it “inland navigation;” I call it spend- 
ing money to float logs to the mills. Now, I have said that asa rule 
irrigation pays where you can let the water flow on the land by 
gravitation. Irrigation by pumping will pay only where you can 
raise certain concentrated crop products. Small fruits, like straw- 
berries, are instances of thatclass. Strawberries particularly require 
plenty of water, and they produce a large amount of money value 
peracre. There is not one year, there is not a single year, but that 
you could greatly increase the small fruit crop by irrigation. The 
fruit needs to be plumped out by moisture, and it needs moisture to 
ripen it properly. If you have control of a water supply, even ofa 
small amount of water, such as by means of tanks, you can do a good 
deal in the way of irrigating your small fruit. It will be money in 
your pocket. A thirty barrel tank is worthless to irrigate with. You 
should have a 150 barrel tank, to 250, 500 or 1000 barrel tank, and 
larger, and then keep those tanks full. Never apply the water cold 
to yourcrop. Put in wind engines, raise the water to those tanks, 
keep the water there until it acquires a temperature of 60° to 70°. Do 
not flood your strawberry beds or other crops you may raise; store 
your water, and then when you see that your strawberries or other 
small fruits need water, make those small furrows I have spoken of 
and get your water in the land as soon as you can. You cannot irri- 
gate level land, but I have seen land irrigated where it was so steep 
you could not drive a wagon across it. Get the water across your 
land as soon as you can, and if you have any fall to your land the 
water will soon run across it; as soon as it gets across cultivate, and 
cultivate deep, even in sandy soil; harrow it up good so it will not 
pack, and you will get remarkable results. 
In regard to getting the water to your small fruit crop (a small 
patch of ground is what I am speaking about now), take an eight- 
inch board for the bottom and six-inch board for the sides, and make 
a trough; put that across the upper side of the land to be irrigated; 
take a 144-inch auger and bore holes in the side of the trough oppo- 
site every furrow, and the water will spout through the holes; that 
is irrigation on a small scale. I have a twenty-acre field irrigated 
in that way the entire length of the field. All I had to do was to go 
out there and pull up the gate and the water would find its way out; 
it found its way through the rows, and I knew there was no failure 
in that. I have heard of several people who are irrigating by steam 
power. It nearly always costs more than it is worth. You might 
possibly be able to irrigate your potato patch by means of a thresh- 
ing machine engine where you have the money already invested 
and where you have your own wood supply. It might possibly be 
be profitable to do that where the expense is very low. If you use 
coal or wood at $2.50 per cord, it would be extremely difficult to make 
any money irrigating, except in exceptional cases, with steam power. 
You could irrigate small fruit with windmill power. 
