COLONY BUILDING IN ARID AMERICA. 



CO-OPERATIVE IRRIGATION ON THE 

 PLAINS. 



By JOHN G. STEFFEE. 



THESE suggestions are intended to apply mainly 

 to river and creek valleys where irrigation by 

 the ordinary canal system is impracticable, and 

 where a continuous water supply of at least one 

 hundred gallons per minute can be obtained by 

 pumping from wells not exceeding twenty-five feet in 

 depth. The writer's personal knowledge of locations 

 for such wells is confined, principally, to counties 

 intersected by the Arkansas and Cimarron rivers, and 

 the counties of Harper, Barber, Comanche, Clark j 

 Meade, Kiowa, Pratt and Kingman in Kansas, and 

 although the suggestions hereinafter briefly outlined 

 are applicable to all sub-humid areas having similar 

 local conditions and environments, it is to southwest- 

 ern Kansas especially that this paper refers. 



It is now generally conceded, and is indeed a well- 

 known fact that the irrigation of five to fifteen acres of 

 land, by means of a light service pump of large capa- 

 city and with an ordinary wind-mill as the motive 

 power is both successful and profitable, and the aim 

 of "Co-operative Irrigation and the Colony Plan '' is 

 to employ the same economical and practical methods 

 as are now used by individual farmers, with such 

 modifications as experience, local conditions and 

 necessities will require, and is recommended only as 

 a means of utilizing more fully the available and 

 favorable sites for irrigation, and for distributing the 

 benefits thereof among the greatest number of users. 



The development of this plan of irrigation need not 

 be confined exclusively to pumping plants, but is well 

 adapted to numerous sites where small streams can be 

 utilized for irrigation of limited areas, and especially 

 where reservoirs can be constructed to retain the 

 storm waters of the smaller catchment basins. 



By this term we heartily concur, so far as the local 

 conditions are applicable in the opinion of our leading 

 hydrographers and irrigationists, that the outlet of 

 the catchment basin should be dammed only with the 

 view of diverting the storm waters into ditches and 

 conducted to natural or artificial reservoirs. The 

 general features of this plan, we think, can be under- 

 stood from the following example: Let a tract of 

 land, varying from 40 acres to 640 acres in area, be 

 selected according to the surface conditions and 

 water supply, all which tract can be thoroughly irri- 

 gated from pumping plants, reservoir or catchment 



basins, or by utilizing the water from a small stream 

 in the immediate vicinity, then let this irrigated tract 

 be sub-divided into small plats of five to twenty 

 acres each, and allow each individual or family inter- 

 ested in the development and maintenance of said 

 tract the use of one of the small plats for the purpose 

 of raising garden vegetables, fruits, potatoes, etc., for 

 home consumption and for market. 



This plan is capable of great modification to con- 

 form to local conditions and to exigencies dependent 

 upon private land ownership, and of many classes or 

 conditions which might be named. We will notice 

 only four. 



First. In neighborhoods already thickly settled, a 

 favorably located tract of land comprising forty to 

 one hundred and sixty acres may be selected, and 

 either purchased or leased on the co-operative or 

 partnership plan, and irrigated by any method found 

 to be the most economical and practicable, and the 

 expense of development and maintenance pro-rated 

 annually among the farmers, using such irrigated 

 land, according to their respective interests and the 

 amount of water or land used by each. 



Second. A farmer, on whose land might be found 

 a favorable site for irrigation, could in some instances 

 at his own expense, put in ditches, pumps or reser- 

 voir of sufficient capacity to irrigate a portion of his 

 farm, say 50 to 100 acres; and after retaining 20 to 40 

 acres for his own use as orchard, for alfalfa and for 

 garden and vegetables, he could lease each year to 

 his less favored neighbors the remainder of the irri- 

 gated tract, in 1 to 5 acre plats, for raising potatoes, 

 small fruits and root crops. The annual income from 

 such leases alone would contribute largely to the ex- 

 pense of maintenance and operation of the entire 

 tract. 



Third. It is well known that many, if not a major- 

 ity of the most favorable sites for irrigation, in the 

 counties intersected by the Cimarron and Medicine 

 rivers, also along Salt Fork, Mule creek, Kiowa creek 

 and their tributaries were appropriated many years 

 ago by ranchmen for ranch headquarters, and are 

 still so held. It is equally true that few, if any, of 

 these large ranches have been profitable investments, 

 during the last eight or ten years, and that many of 

 them are for sale at very low prices, compared with 

 their original cost and former supposed values. For 

 ranch purposes exclusively, even at present prices, 

 they are not generally reckoned as safe investments 

 and are slow sale, and for dry farming alone they are 



