THE SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL PHASES 



OF IRRIGATION. 



BY C. A. GREGORY. 



WE shall get some light on the subject of irriga- 

 tion if we give its definition in such terms as 

 shall show its extension in use, and its limitations 

 and boundaries as a practical art. 



It is not the putting of water on land merely; if it 

 were, it would include hydraulic mining; it would in- 

 clude also the putting of water on land to kill vegeta- 

 tion, as where noxious vegetation abounds, or alkali 

 abounds, and you wish to kill it by drowning it out. 

 It is, therefore, something different from this. 



If I make a definition of this subject, as I think we 

 use the term, it is: The artificial application of 

 water to land, by skillful, systematic and scientific 

 methods, for the purpose of promoting agriculture 

 and horticulture. And such a definition implies that 

 it is an art in which proficiency must be acquired, 

 and that behind the art lies the science of engineer- 

 ing and organic and inorganic chemistry and a 

 knowledge of plant life, and that it is essentially a 

 manufacturing of crops of the field, farm, orchard 

 and garden. 



Water is not only necessary for vegetable growth, 

 but it is well established that to a great extent the 

 amount of growth depends upon the quantity of 

 water supplied to the crop. I cannot stop to dwell 

 on this topic, but it may be stated as a law that the 

 measure of the water consumed may be considered 

 as the measure of the capacity of the soil to furnish 

 its product. I say the measure of the water con- 

 sumed by the plants not the measure of the water 

 poured on a different thing. You may put too much 

 water on the soil and work an injury by such excess. 

 Few persons realize the value of water to plant 

 growth. In plant society, commerce is carried on by 

 water and life is sustained by water. Water is the 

 common carrier of plant food; inter-communication 

 between the elementary substances, gases, soils and 

 air is carried on by the agency of water. Let this 

 suffice here to show its necessity and importance. 



GREAT IS IRRIGATION. 



The most important, practical, scientific and social 

 industry of our time and country is irrigation. 



In humid America the extent of its usefulness is 

 not much thought about. It is only lately that the ir- 

 rigation problem has awakened interest, and I re- 

 gard it as an evidence of the aroused interest in this 

 subject that conventions are being held in various 

 states, inviting a discussion of this subject. Such a 

 thing was not possible a few years ago. It shows 

 that the irrigation idea has at last penetrated the 

 public mind, that it has fastened itself on the mind as 

 a matter of importance, as a matter worthy of consid- 



eration on the part of those who largely direct public 

 affairs, as well as those who place dependence on the 

 art for their support. 



The farmers in the humid region would do wisely 

 to consider the aggregate gain to capital that could 

 be made by great attention to irrigation. Our climate 

 is changeable, sometimes too much rain, sometimes 

 too little rain, and rain at a time when it is of little 

 use to the farm and orchard. It is not suggested that 

 great canals and irrigation works should be estab- 

 lished in this region, but it is insisted that drouth loss 

 can be minimized by use of water that lies near at 

 hand and now goes to waste. It lies on the surface 

 in ponds and lakes, or runs in perennial streams, or 

 in the earth near enough to the surface to be often 

 availed of by some method of lift irrigation. Our 

 long summer drouths occasion great losses. Farm- 

 ers may largely avoid these losses by even that par- 

 tial and inexpensive irrigation which very many 

 localities make practicable. The meadows, the gar- 

 dens and orchards may profitably be irrigated in the 

 humid region. I mean the expense of providing 

 irrigation for such special uses will generally be just- 

 ified by the large increase of the amount of crops, as 

 well as by the evading of drouth losses. Five acres, 

 or ten, well cultivated and supplied with abundant 

 water, will yield, in the course of ten years, as much 

 profit as fifty or a hundred acres equally well culti- 

 vated, but without any provision for the necessary 

 moisture. 



AN EASTERN EXPERIENCE. 



I know of a man in Niagara county, New York, 

 who makes his living out of a garden. He cultivates 

 an acre and a quarter of land in blackberries. His 

 losses by drouth were large in the aggregate, so he 

 thought of irrigation, and, mindful of a pond near 

 his piece of land, he put an iron pipe from the pond 

 to his land and carried the water to his garden. The 

 first year he used it he took off $600 worth of 

 blackberries as his crop, while his neighbors engaged 

 in the same work, by reason of the drouth that sea- 

 son, got nothing. Instances could be multiplied. 

 Indiana is reputed as a wet state. Losses by drouth 

 are large there. An Indiana farmer, having gone to 

 the arid region to live, told a friend of mine that he 

 had lived on his farm in Indiana many years, and 

 for twenty years he had kept a diary of the weather 

 and of crop yield, and the aggregate of drouth losses 

 was surprisingly large; that he had learned a lesson 

 in the arid region, and he was going back to Indiana 

 to do a thing there that would indeed make his 

 neighbors think he was a "crank "he was going to 

 irrigate his farm! 



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