FIELD FOR IRRIGATION IN WESTERN NEBRASKA. 



BY H. EMERSON. 



THOSE who know most about western Nebraska 

 have reluctantly come to the conclusion that 

 some form of irrigation is not only desirable but al- 

 most essential to permanent prosperity. 



The western counties of the State were not settled 

 with any such expectation. It had taken a genera- 

 tion for the people of eastern Nebraska to overcome 

 the drawbacks incident to first settlement, drought, 

 hot winds, lack of market and money, grasshoppers, 

 poor seed, insufficient cultivation, but with time mar- 

 velous progress had been made and settlement 

 steadily pushed westwards, until between the years 

 1884 and 1887 the whole of the western third of 

 Nebraska and Kansas and the eastern third of Colo- 

 rado were filled with hopeful settlement. 



GOOD AND BAD CROP YEARS. 



Eighteen hundred and eighty-four, 1885 and 1886 

 were good crop years; 1887 a failure; 1888 a 

 good crop year with unusually high price 

 for wheat; in 1889 there were good crops, espe- 

 cially of corn, but the price was very low. In 1890 

 there was a total crop failure, followed by remark- 

 ably good crops and prices in 1891. The year 1892 

 showed fair crops, but 1893 was a very bad year and 

 1894 threatens to be as bad. 



A few settlements even in eastern Colorado have 

 attained a certain degree of prosperity, owing to the 

 exceptional character of the settlers, but on the 

 whole the struggle against low prices in good years, 

 and no crop in bad years has prevented the general 

 advance that all expected ten years ago. 



AVERAGE RAINFALL. 



The rainfall of western Nebraska is only one-half 

 of the average on the eastern border of the State, yet 

 there are many countries in the world where agri- 

 culture is successful with even less rain than the 

 mean of the western counties. Twelve inches of 

 water to every square inch of surface is sufficient for 

 all purposes in a really arid region like Arizona, but 

 in Nebraska there are ruined crops with an average 

 rainfall of eighteen inches. This is partly owing to 

 the fact of cloud bursts, during which rain may fall 

 to the amount of an inch or more in 24 hours, nearly 

 all of which rapidly runs off, may be preceded or 

 succeeded by long dry spells, or that after a week or 

 two of dry weather a burning hot wind begins to blow 

 which in a single day will wither wheat and corn. 



The amount of water really needed for crop pur- 

 poses is very much less than is generally imagined, 

 much less than the average rainfall of all but the 



driest regions, provided the water application can be 

 absolutely controlled. Cases are on record in Cali- 

 fornia practice where one inch of water per inch of 

 surface has been sufficient, and yet we have crop 

 failures with rainfalls varying between 12 and 24 

 inches, of which three-quarters falls during the crop- 

 growing months. 



EFFICIENCY OF WATER. 



In different parts of the irrigated world there is an 

 astounding difference in the efficiency of water, and, 

 as might be expected, the United States furnishes 

 examples of extreme waste and extreme economy. 



Taking the flow of one cubic foot per second with- 

 out making allowance for differing rainfalls and dif- 

 ferent lengths of growing season, this supplies in 

 Colorado from 50 to 80 acres; Italy, 70; Utah and 

 France, 80 to 100; India, 150 to 400; Spain, as high as 

 1,000; California, 80 to 1,600, and by sub-irrigation 

 (pipes) from 1,500 to 9,000. 



Near Greeley, Colorado, the farmer who doubted if 

 his spring or brook would suffice for 20 acres extends 

 his cultivation bit by bit until it reaches 80 or 100 

 acres and he still has some to spare. 



Bishop Musser, of Salt Lake, states that when the 

 city was first founded, from a certain source there 

 was only water enough for 900 acres, while the same 

 amount now supplies more than 5,000. 



Fresno, California, furnishes one of the most strik- 

 ing examples of the effects of irrigation. Fifteen 

 years ago the sandy soil, grassless and treeless for 

 scores of square miles, maintained only a few herds 

 of cattle. There was no sign of cultivation; water 

 could only be obtained by sinking wells 40 to 80 feet, 

 and the rainfall was both irregular and insufficient. 

 The King river, the one available stream, carried 

 sometimes no more than 500 cubic feet per second. 

 For some time, even after the canal to supply this 

 colony had been constructed, so rapidly did the open 

 ditch absorb the intake that it was thought the water 

 would never reach the settlement at all. Week by 

 week the thread of water wound its way along, and 

 at last it entered the fields, the flow steadily strength- 

 ening, creeping farther and farther on, feeding an 

 ever widening district, until to-day there are fifteen 

 canals drawing their waters from this river, irrigating 

 55,000 acres, which form a chain of settlement all 

 around the central Californian colony and extending 

 sixteen miles beyond it. Water can now be struck 

 anywhere across the whole plain at ten feet. Irriga- 

 tion by flooding is being abandoned, for the once arid 

 region has become thoroughly moistened, and where 



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