278 Kansas State Board of Agriculture. 



PRELIMINARY PREPARATIONS. 



The first step in the preparation of a field for irrigation is the removal 

 of any dry or bulky vegetable matter. The entire field should then be 

 carefully surveyed by a competent engineer or surveyor, to determine the 

 relative slope of the land as well as the high and low places. Such a 

 survey will enable the owner to estimate roughly the quantity or amount 

 of leveling necessary. Not an uncommon method of leveling practiced by 

 the inexperienced is to turn the water over the field and let it seek its 

 level. This, however, is a crude, expensive, and sometimes misleading 

 method, and should never be practiced where pumping is necessary. An 

 engineer with his leveling instrument, in a few hours and at a fraction 

 of the cost, can give the farmer more information than could be secured 

 by "water levels" in several days. 



LEVELING WITH SCRAPERS. 



Where the ground surface is very uneven the higher places must be 

 scraped off and the dirt carried to the depressions. For such leveling 

 the Fresno scraper is convenient and efficient. These scrapers are made 

 in various sizes suitable for two- or four-horse teams, and are filled or 

 loaded in much the same way as the ordinary "slip" scraper. They have, 

 however, a wider bit and greater capacity, and when filled they may be 

 conveniently hauled to the low places and emptied. These scrapers when 

 dumped do not deposit the earth in a lump but smooth it out evenly. 

 (Fig. 215 shows a cut of one of these scrapers.) Wheel scrapers are 

 sometimes used for the same purpose, but on account of the low first cost, 

 as well as the efficiency in operation, the Fresno scraper is more generally 

 used and is better adapted to the smoothing of land for irrigation. 



LEVELING WITH FLOATS. 



After the ridges have been lowered and the depressions filled with the 

 Fresno scraper the surface may be finally smoothed by floating the 

 ground. To successfully accomplish this the area must be free from dry 

 or bulky vegetable matter, and the entire field should be plowed reasonably 

 deep and the surface harrowed. A homemade timber float, constructed 

 as shown in Fig. 216, is perhaps the best and simplest implement for this 

 work. It will be noted that the float is so constructed that it will ride 

 heaviest on its center when being drawn across a ridge, thereby collecting 

 a quantity of dirt between the long runners. As the implement is drawn 

 across a depression it will ride upon the ends of the runners, and the 

 earth previously collected from the ridges will be automatically dumped 

 in the depression. Deep plowing, thorough harrowing and systematic 

 floating will often be all that is necessary for leveling many acres of 

 Kansas land. 



In operating the float it is first drawn on a diagonal across the field; 

 that is, if the field has a slope east and west, and was so plowed, the 

 float should first be drawn across the land in a northeasterly and south- 

 westerly direction until the field is covered ; then again in a northwesterly 

 and southeasterly direction for the second floating, with a final floating 

 in the general direction in which the water is to be carried. Three float- 



