192 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ing the data from which this table is made 

 there is still enough margin to justify the 

 erection of pumping plants when water is 

 at any depth at which it is ordinarily 

 found in abundance. 



Good judgment dictates in general the 

 cultivation of various crops on the same 

 farm for example early potatoes and late 

 cabbage thus making a given monthly 

 supply of water do double duty. In 

 favorable soils deep plowing and winter 

 irrigation (storing the water in the sub- 

 soils) still further increases the duty so 

 that all the year irrigation may be made 

 to cover three times the acreage of ninety 

 days' summer surface watering. 



In general the larger pumping plants of 

 either class are the more economical for 

 reasons which it seems not necessary to 

 explain. 



By reason generally of a saving in first 

 cost other combinations are in occasional 

 use: a second-hand steam thresher engine 

 belted to centrifugal pump, animal power 

 geared to endless chain or belt of elevator 

 buckets or board buckets lifting in box 

 spouts. 



The whole matter of pumping water for 

 irrigation is so new to our people that 

 they often adopt make-shift arrangements 

 till they can see with their own eyes what 

 a little water does for them. How many 

 New York farmers pay $10 or $20 an acre 

 annually for fertilizers and then reap, on 

 an average, only a half or two-thirds of a 

 maximum crop because of a partial drought 

 at some time during the growing period. 

 Unreliable water by canals has been cost- 

 ing the average irrigator of the United 

 States almost exactly one dollar a year 

 per acre. Reliable water by pumps, 

 properly planned, costs from one to three 

 dollars in the valleys proper and as high 

 as five or even ten dollars on the higher 

 lands including interest. 



Where is the fruit or vegetable grower 

 who does not, nearly every year, realize 

 that he could well afford to pay five dollars 

 an acre or even more, rather than to have 

 suffered from the deficiency of water that 

 visited him at some time during the grow- 

 ing season? 



(To be continued.) 



THE ART OF IRRIGATION. 



CHAPTER XII. IRRIGATING BY FLOODING (Continued). 



BY T. S. VAN DYKE. 



r*HE size of the checks to contain the 

 A water in irrigation by flooding will 

 also depend upon the head of water at 

 your service. 



Suppose you have two cubic feet a sec- 

 ond, or one hundred miner's inches for ten 

 acres. This is head enough for most any 

 orchard work on almost any soil worth 

 cultivating at all, and though for alfalfa 

 much more may be used, it is quite ample 

 if no more can be had. Suppose the 

 checks are twenty feet square, which 

 would give them an area of four hundred 

 square feet. It would then take two cubic 

 feet a second but two hundred seconds to 

 fill one a foot deep. But you rarely want 

 more than the equivalent of three inches 

 of rain at a time, or one-fourth of an acre 

 foot. This would till the check in fifty 

 seconds. A line of checks to watch and 

 let the water from one to the other as fast 

 as filled and have no breaking away of the 



water will keep you and two other average 

 men hopping about pretty lively. And 

 the chances are you will find any kind of 

 waterproof boots too slow as compared 

 with bare legs. There is no room for style 

 in this work. It is very strict business, 

 and often there is a very short time in 

 which to do it. If you want to hire less 

 help, you will make the checks larger. 

 But here you may be limited by the nature 

 of the crop as well as by the slope of the 

 land. If it is an orchard it will probably 

 be more convenient to have the ridges in 

 the center between the. trees. It is impos- 

 sible to lay down any rule. The right 

 thing is a see-saw between several ex- 

 tremes. In some cases it will pay to use 

 a smaller head to avoid making too large 

 checks, and on the contrary you may have 

 to make them large because you are lim- 

 ited to so short a run that you have to use 

 a very large head to get over the ground 



