THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ard, briars, or anything that happened to be on the 

 ground when Columbus landed on the other shore. 



This one furrow wet only one side of the tree or vine. 

 In many cases it did not even do that, for the run of 

 water was too short to allow it to penetrate anything 

 but very sandy ground to any considerable depth. 

 The roots were coaxed nearly always to the same 

 place, and that a limited area in which they were 

 balled up and knotted and tangled in all sorts of 

 ways. Generally one-half and often two-thirds or 

 more of the feeding ground the roots should have 

 had was so dry during the summer that all the fine 

 roots that had entered it after it was wet from the 

 winter rains, and while the moisture was receding 

 were killed off with dryness. 



But this was not the worst of it. Until one has 

 seen it no one can believe how quickly ground 

 that is never cultivated will dry out under the hot 

 sun and dry air of most of the irrigating countries. 

 But this is not half so surprising as the speed with 

 which a piece of dry, hard, uncultivated ground -will 



sap the moisture from an irrigated piece beside it, 

 especially if the latter is uncultivated. So long there- 

 fore as only a part of the tract was irrigated instead 

 of the whole the dry parts quickly sapped the moist- 

 ure from the wet ones which were much less in area. 

 This made a debatable land between the wet and the 

 dry into which the new roots were being coaxed at 

 each irrigation only to be killed off by drying. 



This alone was an injury to the tree by keeping it 

 working for nothing, but it was made worse by the 

 fact that one dose of water rarely wet the exact area 

 that the last one did. Either from the cutting or 

 puddling of different parts of the ditch or the dif- 

 ferent periods of time the water was run, or from a 

 change of the ditch by accident or purposely from 

 one side of the tree to the other, the portion of 

 the ground becoming sufficiently saturated to do good 

 service was not always the same and the tree was 

 injured by having constantly to accommodate itself to 

 new conditions. 



(Continued in next number.} 



PERMEABLE TILE TO SECURE WATER FROM THE UNDERFLOW. 



BY J. W. GREGORY. 



T NCREASING interest in irrigation on the Great 

 1 Plains and the recognized importance of securing 

 water from the underflow have led to inquiry into the 

 f easbility of using ordinary porous drain-tile laid in 

 the saturated, sandy substrata of Plains watercourses, 

 for the purpose of obtaining water just as the same 

 sort of tile is used further east for carrying off sur- 

 plus water from the soil. 



The following is a repetition, in substance, of the 

 answer made to an inquiry from a gentleman in 

 southern Nebraska relative to the advisability of lay- 

 ing such tile conduits and it occurred to me that the 

 matter might be of interest to others: 



I do not see how there can be any question that 

 water may be obtained in this way, if the tile is 

 properly laid. The effectiveness of permeable tile in 

 collecting water from underground sources is thor- 

 oughly established. But, in laying tile in the fine 

 sands, which form so large a part of the medium in 

 which our underwaters are found, it will be found 

 absolutely necessary to lay only flawless tile and so 

 that the joints shall be and remain perfect. Otherwise 

 the sand will, sooner or later, choke up the conduit 

 and failure and loss will result. No tile should be 

 laid having the smallest hole through its side, or hav 

 ing the smallest piece chipped out of an end, so that 

 an absolutely perfect joint can not be made. Extra 

 precaution will also be necessary to prevent the roll- 

 ing or slipping of the tile after it is laid in the pro- 

 cess of covering, or afterward, and I am convinced 

 that laying the ordinary tile, in the way it is laid in 



loam or clay for drainage purposes, will prove unsat- 

 isfactory in the fine, lively sands of variable texture 

 from which the water must be secured, in most cases. 

 It will be necessary either to use tiles having a collar 

 at one end so as to form a slip-joint, or to have bands 

 to slip over the joints, or to take some other precau- 

 tion to insure that the ends of the tiles shall not slip 

 past each other. This point might be effectuated by 

 underlaying the ordinary tile with stringers of plank 

 or scantling, in many cases. The safest plan would 

 be to use two sizes of tile, one fitting inside of the 

 other closely, care being taken to break joints. 



In this way, displacement either by rolling or slip- 

 ping would be effectually prevented and any chance 

 flaw in a tile, which might be overlooked, would be 

 covered by the other tile, over or under it. While 

 this would materially increase the first cost of such a 

 conduit, the difference of cost would be more than 

 offset by the certainty and permanency of results. If 

 such a conduit is laid in the bed of a channel through 

 which flood-waters pass, at any time, care should be 

 taken to have the tile buried deep enough to be safe 

 from washing out or being disarranged by torrents. 

 It would be well to avoid, as far as possible, laying 

 such conduits across the course of any such stream, if 

 the bed is composed mainly, or in places, of fine sand, 

 because such sands move and shift to considerable 

 depths in times of flood, and the conduit if laid across 

 the course of any the stream, is much more likely 

 to be disarranged and consequently filled up, than if 

 laid parallel, or nearly so, to the flow of the water. 



