IRRIGATION IN SOUTHWEST KANSAS. 



inquirers who have visited Garden City the past two 

 seasons can testify to the broad gauge, open-handed 

 reception they have uniformly met. 



GOOD SEED WIDELY SCATTERED. 



The results of the demonstrations of the successful 

 irrigators by pumping in this locality have reached 

 very substantial proportions, and, though it may rain 

 again and thus dampen the enthusiasm of would-be 

 irrigators as has so often happened before yet the 

 widening circles of the influence of these achieve- 

 ments have already spread to many and remote local- 

 ities, and within the next three or four years there 

 will doubtless be scores of more or less prosperous 

 irrigation centers, each adding valuable contributions 

 to the sum of progress toward 'he general success of 

 the settlers upon the Great Plains, and the develop- 

 ment of the wonderful latent resources of this favored 

 region. 



Perhaps nothing would be of more interest in this 

 connection than a few details as to people, what they 

 have done, and the results. 



A. S. Parson, who has five acres, one mile from 

 town, irrigated by two ordinary pump cylinders oper- 

 ated by an eight-foot steel windmill, and using a small 

 reservoir, produced 1,200 pounds of the finest onions 

 this season on one-sixty-ninth of an acre, and up- 



ward of 3,000 bunches of celery on one-fortieth of an 

 acre. The ground was as heavily manured, as 

 carefully prepared, as thoroughly cultivated and as 

 faithfully watered as any eastern market garden or 

 Southern California orchard. Mr. Parson is a skilled 

 horticulturist, but his processes are simple and easily 

 understood, and he gives all his neighbors the bene- 

 fit of his knowledge, if they see fit to profit thereby. 

 The same plat of ground that produced the celery 

 had also previously produced lettuce and radishes, 

 which sold for $27.40, earlier in the season. The cel- 

 ery was planted so close (five by ten inches apart) 

 that, by surrounding the plat with boards, no hilling 

 up was required to blanch it. The accompanying 

 cut shows the crop just as it grew, being photographed 

 as it stood in the plat. 



Capt. E. L. Hall has ten acres devoted to fruit 

 mainly, producing vegetables between the rows of 

 trees as yet. His water supply is furnished by two 

 six-inch pumps, run by eight-foot windmills. Some 

 years ago, the ground he occupied was bare prairie, 

 untouched by the plow. At the recent Finney county 

 fair he exhibited sixteen varieties of fine apples from 

 his orchard, and his potatoes, sweet potatoes and 

 other vegetables were as fine and as abundant as 

 could be desired. Across the roadway from him, 

 T. J. Dyke, whose tract is but three years from the 

 sod, makes a specialty of Irish potatoes, and his 

 crops rival those of Potato Land (Greeley) itself. 



APPLE TREE, FIVE YEARS OLD, NEAR GARDEN CITY. 



