IRRIGATION BECOMING GENERAL. 



IRRIGATION is spreading throughout 

 1 the United States like a prairie tire in 

 a windstorm. Agricultural classes have 

 been studying the advantages of this sure 

 method of farming for a long time, and 

 the general drought of the past season 

 has once more indicated that the richest 

 and most fertile lands along the largest 

 water courses are not safe without means 

 of watering, for rain cannot be depended 

 upon when most needed. Intelligence is 

 received that for the coming season irriga- 

 tion will be resorted to in various sections 

 of Illinois, Indiana. Michigan, Ohio, 

 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, 

 New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. 

 There was irrigation in several of the 

 Soin hern States in 1895, and in 189(3 every 

 State in the whole Southern tier will 

 farm more or less under the infallible 

 plan. It is learned also that sections of 

 Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota will fall 

 in line, and that irrigation operations will 

 be largely increased in Nebraska, South Da- 

 kota and North Dakota. In the former arid 

 States and Territories of the West, great 

 progress has been made in this safe mode 

 of farming, but this article deals wholly 

 with the rain belt. THE IHEIGATION AGE 

 being the pioneer in irrigation journalism 

 congratulates the country on the general 

 adoption of the methods it has so long, 

 advocated. 



That the wonderful success of the irri- 

 gated farm at Kankakee w,ill give a great 

 impetus to irrigation in Illinois there can 

 be no doubt. Sooner or later this State 

 and other States along the line of the great 

 lakes will be watered by pipe lines from 

 those great bodies of water, Illinois es- 

 pecially, penetrated as it is to be by the 

 great Drainage Canal. Alarmists are say- 

 ing that the withdrawal of 300,000 cubic 

 feet of water per minute from Lake Michi- 

 gan by the Drainage Canal will reduce the 

 level of the lakes to such an extent as to 

 interfere with navigation by the largest 

 l$ke steamers. In a rain of six inches 

 which recently fell over these lakes the 

 quantity of water added to them was 

 1,079,640,176,000 cubic feet. It would 

 take seven years for the Chicago Drainage 



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Canal to withdraw this quantity of water. 

 This "drainage" canal is really a great 

 ship canal, and by tapping it here and 

 there crops will be aided to make cargoes 

 for those ships. 



But that is a matter of the future. 

 For the immediate present, pumping plants 

 will convey water from neighboring; 

 streams, as at Kankakee, and in this farm- 

 ers can associate themselves together here 

 and there and divide the expense. Reser- 

 voirs and lakes will be made in different 

 sections, and various means will be em- 

 ployed in pumping the water. Two irri- 

 gations a season will prove sufficient in 

 Illinois. Gas engines, oil engines and 

 perhaps electricity will furnish the power r 

 and it is likely that wind mills will cut a 

 big figure. With a gasoline engine, a 

 pump and a reservoir, small patches can 

 be independent of any general irrigation 

 companies, though it must be confessed 

 that the latter have proved a great benefit 

 in the far West, reclaiming thousands of 

 acres of barren lands and transforming- 

 them into farms that produce not only 

 one, but several crops a season. 



During the recent meeting of the- 

 Illinois State Horticultural Society at 

 Kankakee, one hundred of the members 

 in attendance, with their wives, visited 

 the irrigated farm of the Illinois Eastern 

 Hospital for the Insane, on the invitation of 

 Dr. Gapen, the superintendent, and the re- 

 ported wonderful crops of the past season 

 were investigated to their entire satis- 

 faction. That many of these farmers wilt 

 irrigate their orchards and gardens goes 

 without the saying. Certain it is that a 

 large number of them said they " didn't 

 propose to wait on the rain any more." 

 But corn, and everything that grows, can 

 be irrigated, and. even in the most fertile 

 regions of the rain belt, crops will be four- 

 fold greater with irrigation than without 

 .it. 



A bit of intelligence which is of im- 

 portance to Illinois farm owners can be con- 

 veyed herewith. It is that a company has- 

 recently been incorporated at Springfield 

 "to buy and sell farm lands in Illinois,'* 

 which intends nothing less than the buy- 



