IRRIGATION BECOMING GENERAL. 



23 



ing up of farms just now, when farmers, 

 as is supposed, are discouraged and will 

 sell cheap, put in irrigation plants and 

 then sell them off at gilt-edged prices. 

 The headquarters of this company are 

 now in Chicago but the gentlemen have 

 heretofore been operating in the same 

 way further West. The Southern 

 colonies, made up of farmers in Illinois 

 and Indiana, will make their operations 

 very profitable. There is much/ unfavor- 

 ble comment in a quiet way, and it is 

 charged that one of the men connected 

 with this company is the prime mover in 

 a certain Southern colony, and that, 

 through other parties, he actually bought, 

 cheaply, the farms of two men whom he 

 personally induced to go South. But the 

 point here is that this company, even in 

 legitimate buying, see a chance for making 

 big money by improving the farms through 

 irrigation and selling them again. If 

 this company can do this, the present 

 owners can do the same, and thus bring 

 up the value of their holdings. 



The plan that many farmers will adopt 

 is wind power, pumps and reservoirs or 

 lakes. The bottoms and sides of these 

 artificial lakes only require puddling. 

 After this has been done the seepage will 

 be no greater than the evaporation. A 

 mill that will only pump enough water to 

 irrigate one acre when applied direct from 

 the pump, will irrigate from ten to twenty 

 acres if the water is applied from the out- 

 let in the reservoir. The advantage 

 gained is found in the pushing power of 

 the water when rapidly discharged from 

 the reservoir at a rale of from two to three 

 cubic feet a second, or at the same rate 

 in gallons of from fifteen to twenty-two 

 gallons a second. By this method but 

 little water is lost. The land lying a 

 quarter of a mile from the plant will re- 

 ceive almost as much as the tract directly 

 adjoining the mill. When the reservoir 

 is nearly empty the gate is closed, and it is 

 filled by the same process and repeated 

 on another portion of the farm. 



Verily, the age of prayer for rain has 

 been relegated to the dark past. 



IRRIGATION PUMPING PLANT IN SOUTHWESTERN KANSAS. 



