THE ART OF IRRIGATION. 



FOURTH PAPER: A FURTHER ANALYSIS OF THE MISTAKES OF EARLY 



IRRIGATORS. 



BY T. S. VAN DYKE. 



NOT only was the labor of irrigating the whole 

 ground by the dams or checks described in the 

 last chapter very great, but it required an amount of 

 water that many did not have. The quantity of water 

 used by the novice is so much greater than that used 

 by the skilful hand that few could indulge their ex- 

 travagant notions unless drawing from a good sized 

 stream. Many a man who attempted to irrigate from 

 a small stream, even with a dam at the head of his 

 ditch, found that by the time the water had soaked 

 the dry dirt that formed the ditch, and had filled the 

 thirsty gopher holes that yawned fresh along its route 

 every morning there was not enough to fill the large 

 checks he had made. 



Many a man, too, was compelled to irrigate from a 

 well, and generally pump the water with a windmill. 

 Sometimes he used horse power and occasionally a 

 steam pump. But if the pump worked worth a cent 

 its delighted owner generally found his bliss impaired 

 by the well's giving out in a short time and requiring 

 a day or so to fill again. 



So, too, there was much sloping ground on which it 

 would need too large a dam on the lower side to hold 

 the water. The depth of the water was no objection, 

 but the building of high checks bore too strong a 

 resemblance to work, and very few people ever go 

 into the sunlands to work. It was also liable to break 

 out and damage the ground below with a rush of 

 water, and this again was suggestive of perspiration. 



For these reasons many naturally drifted into mak- 

 ing a small basin around the thing to be watered. 

 This was used more for trees and vines than anything 

 else and was of many forms. Sometimes it was made 

 small and filled several times in the course of a day 

 or two. Sometimes it was quite large and filled only 

 once. Sometimes it was deep and sometimes shallow, 

 sometimes square and sometimes round or oblong. 

 All these points varied with the whim of the owner and 

 the lay of the ground. If the slope were considerable, 

 then an oblong basin lying lengthwise along the hill 

 needed less of a bank on the lower side. If water 

 were scarce then the basins were made small and 

 filled two or three times the same day, so as to make 

 the water go down and keep it close to the roots of 

 the tree instead of escaping on the sides. 



These basins were filled in several ways, but the 

 most common was with hose from hydrants standing 

 above the ground every few yards through the 

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orchard. Sometimes it was done with a water cart, 

 or a barrel mounted on a sled, or some other stupid 

 device. The irrigator rarely ran the water in streams 

 from tree to tree, because the land was not generally 

 of the proper slope for that purpose, and he never 

 dreamed of the expediency of making it so. More- 

 over, he generally had no water to waste and had to 

 use hose to save it. 



Instead of a basin a series of short furrows or 

 troughs was sometimes made with a hoe or spade, 

 two or three on each side the tree. And occasionally 

 these were made in circles, or crescents, or spirals, or 

 any kind of shape. The general effect was, however, 

 the same. 



Two principles were firmly held by all the early 

 irrigators. 



First, that the roots " must be trained down," else 

 how could they help drying too speedily? 



Second, that they must be kept " close to the tree," 

 otherwise they would go out into the dry ground, 

 which there was not water enough to wet, or which it 

 was too difficult to wet. 



By many more it was as firmly believed that cultiva- 

 tion of the soil would make it dry out the more quick- 

 ly. If any did not believe this it was because they 

 had never taken the trouble to think about cultiva- 

 tion at all. Pouring on more water was the favorite 

 remedy for baking of the top soil, the same as in the 

 other methods. A very few broke up the basins 

 with a hoe or spade, but for a long time no one 

 dreamed of breaking up the hard dry ground that 

 filled all the intermediate space. 



This hard, unplowed ground lying outside the 

 basins and forming from three-fourths to nine-tenths 

 of the whole orchard absorbed like so much blotting 

 paper the water from the basins and evaporated it into 

 the air with a rapidity that one who has never studied 

 the working of capillary attraction on ground where 

 the ducts are never broken can scarcely conceive. 

 Everything thus grown in basins was practically 

 grown in a flower pot. That the pot consisted of 

 dry earth was, on account of the absorption, worse 

 than if it had been of stone or wood, for its outer wall 

 consisted of a debatable territory varying in size, 

 which was in an ever changing condition of moisture. 

 After each irrigation the roots were coaxed out into a 

 region that, about the time they were well started 

 towards it, would be too dry to sustain them, and the 



