PULSE OF THE IRRIGATION INDUSTRY. 



147 



IRRIGATION IN CHINA. 



A large part of the farming of the Chinese empire 

 is done by irrigation, and the water rights of the 

 Celestials are as full of complications as those of Col- 

 orado, says Frank G. Carpenter. 



Although they have no fences to mark the bound- 

 aries of their property, they work away in peace and 

 quiet, and it is wonderful how much they make the 

 land produce. Three crops a year is not uncommon, 

 and if a sign of failure is seen the seed for another 

 crop is straightway sown. 



The farms are remarkably small, thousands of 

 holdings being an acre or less, and in the better part 



A MEXICAN CANAL. 



The Bureau of the American Republics, at Washing- 

 ton, D. C., is informed that the Sonora and Sinaloa Ir- 

 rigation Co., which owns a concession granted in the 

 name of Mr. Carlos Conant, for the construction of an 

 irrigation canal in the States of Sonora and Sinaloa, is 

 rapidly pushing forward its work. When completed 

 the canal will be seventy feet wide at the bottom, 

 having a fall of fifteen inches per mile, and will carry 

 a stream of water six feet deep. For more than one 

 year a steam dredge costing $27,000 has been at 

 work. The concessionaire has a land grant of 550,- 

 000 acres, lying between the rivers Yaqui and Mayo, 



FARMING LAND IRRIGATED BY THE RIVERSIDE CANAL, CENTRAL WYOMING. 



of the empire it is estimated that an acre will support 

 a family of six persons. 



The use of fertilizers is universal, and there is no 

 land which is so well fed. Everything is saved, and 

 the stuff which is gathered up is kept in great vats, 

 and the farm is watered like a garden. A dipperful 

 of the fertilizer from the vats, in liquid form, is put 

 into every bucket of water and the mixture poured at 

 the roots of the plants. 



Such fertilization is going on all the time and some- 

 times $20 to $30 is spent on one acre. 



The tools used are extremely crude, and there are 

 no horses and few cattle, the plows, when the land is 

 not worked by hand, being pulled by water buff aloes, 

 an extremely ugly animal. 



which will be opened to settlement as soon as the canal 

 shall have been completed and the land subdivided. 



In Owens Valley, Inyo County, California, the 

 Californian Waterworks and Irrigation Co. is con- 

 structing a canal fifty-three feet wide on the bed to 

 carry six feet of water. It will be about eighty miles 

 long and will irrigate over 300,000 acres of land lying 

 in the Owens Valley, Rose Springs Valley and Indian 

 Wells Valley. About eighteen miles will probably be 

 completed in October, when 170,000 inches of water 

 from Owens River will be turned in. 



Arizona canal building to the amount of $8,000,000 

 is promised in the next six years. 



