IRRIGATION. 57 
Mr. McGinnis gave us very excellent ideas, and we are indebted to 
him for bringing us the encouragement that comes from irrigation 
in the West. I wish we could go out there and study the question; 
but he looks at this matter of the amount of water required from the 
standpoint where they have plenty of it, and we have to look at it 
from the standpoint where we have to store water. While their at- 
mosphere is dryer and they havea sandy soil, we have conditions 
just the opposite, and a comparatively small amount of water will 
do us much good—and that brings us back again to this question of 
machinery. Considering all the facts, that we have many lakes, 
rivers and other sources of water, it might pay better to give a good 
price for land to a neighbor for lower land than to go on a high hill 
and invest money in costly machinery to take your water up there. 
It takes some experience. Where you have deep wells, the only 
thing you can use is asteam pump where the steam acts directly on 
the piston which carries the pump. At the experiment station we 
have a well 280 feet deep, with water which comes to within a hun- 
dred feet of the surface, and the tank is one hundred feet above the 
well. The tank is twenty feet deep. I will not say anything about 
the cost of the plant, because the plant is used for general purposes 
at the station, but just counting the cost of labor and fuel, we can 
put the water in that tank for one-half cent per barrel, which would 
amount to about five dollars per acre. Thatis why raising the water 
is too expensive, and, if we count in the cost of the plant it would 
raise the cost far more than the figure I have given. 
.For putting one inch of water on an acre, for a short raise of water 
there are several kinds of pumps run with power. There is really 
no cheap arrangement for running a pump directly with gasoline, 
or anything of that kind, but there are a number of arrangements 
for running pumps by means ofan engine and belt. One consists 
ofa rotary pump which is simply an arrangement for forcing water 
forward. The most commonly recommended pump is the centrifu- 
gal pump, and I have had a gentleman who is doing some work in 
putting in irrigation plants make an estimate. He named a man 
living near Minneapolis who had a threshing machine engine we 
could use. We said nothing about the cost of the engine, but we 
would have to allow him something for the use of it. He could pur- 
chase a centrifugal pump, with 3-inch opening, that would raise the 
water thirty feet, for less than a hundred dollars; he could purchase 
400 feet of 4-inch pipe for $108; his fittings, valves, etc., would cost $25 
more. He would have a weight of less than 3,000 lbs. that could be 
hauled from place to place, and it might be possible for him to take 
in jobs of irrigating land. Certainly, it would not be very difficult 
with 4-inch pipe to move the whole thing from one place to another. 
This is a suggestion, of course. The pipe for carrying the water can 
be purchased, sav 1-inch at 314 cents; 2-inch, 10 cents; 3-inch, 19 cents 
and 4-inch, 27 cents; that is about the price pipe can be bought for. 
Probably, a 4inch centrifugal pump would be as large as could be 
used with an ordinary threshing machine engine. Where does the 
cost come in besides the plant? It is the fuel andthe labor. In 
many gardens and fields in the state the water would need to be 
raised more than ten to twenty-five feet. The wood can be purchased 
