IRRIGATION. 53 
Mr. McGinnis: Thatis a simple question to answer. Just 
take a scraper, and your hired man and team and throw a dam 
across the river or ravine. It will take very little water, 
comparatively, in this climate, yet at the same time it will do 
your crops an immense amount of good. Just throw an em- 
bankment across a stream or ravine, anddo it cheaply. Your- 
self. your team and hired man can do it at odd times, when 
nothing else is pressing, and if you throw up an embankment 
across a ravine where the temporary snow water in the spring 
ean collect, I will guarantee that if you use that water wisely a 
year, it will be the best investment you ever made. 
Mr. Pearce: Now lam going to say a word on irrigation. 
Iagree with you that it isa good thing. Out north of me, there 
is aman whose land runs down to the lake, and forty rods away 
south of that I am, with an elevation of thirty feet above 
the lake. We have looked the matter carefully over. We are 
going to have water; we have engines, we have two engines 
there which are doing nothing during the summer. We pro- 
pose to put an engine there that will.throw a barrel of water 
aminute. Our land is in a position so we can irrigate. Now 
the cost of running that engine is the way to figure it, and a 
_barrel a minute is not to cost us more than two or three dollars 
a day. Now, what I want to know is, can we make a success 
of it? 
Mr. McGinnis: If you go out of the domain of gravity and 
enter the domain of wind pumps and engines, it depends alto- 
gether upon local conditions. Ifyou can hire a man for twenty 
dollars a month, you can irrigate for a short time, but when 
you make up your mind to irrigate for a long time, you must 
get the expense of raising that water to the lowest possible 
point, or it will result in financial failure. 
Mr. Pearce: We are going to use pipes. 
Mr. McGinnis: It is not necessary for you to use pipes; use 
lumber, it is cheaper. You will find lumber cheaper and 
easier to handle. 
Mr. Elliot: Sixty barrels an hour would give him 1440 bar- 
rels in twenty-four hours; that would cost him about five cents 
abarrel. He could do considerable with that amount of water. 
Mr. McGinnis: I want to caution you. While I am very 
enthusiastic about irrigation, it is anexperimental matter with 
you, and I do not want to be in a measure responsible in claim- 
ing too much for irrigation. 
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