IRRIGATION PROGRESS IN NEBRASKA. 



233 



Water is not only a powerful fertilizer, 

 but it also promotes the disintegration of 

 soils, thereby liberating the elements neces- 

 sary to the growth of plants. Place upon 

 certain soils fertilizers of certain kinds, 

 and leave them to be acted upon by the 

 chance rainfalls that may occur, and fre- 

 quently three-fourths of the best elements 

 in these fertilizers are lost through evapo- 

 ration or seepage. Irrigation can prevent 

 this, and the gain that will accrue through 

 the additional effect of the disintegrating 

 power of the water will be very great. 



They have been irrigating in Spain and 

 Italy for centuries. Biblical lands, once 

 under the dominion of the Roman Em- 

 pire, held and maintained a vast popula- 

 tion through their systems of irrigation. 

 Their magnificent works were allowed to 

 decay and the country became depopu- 

 lated. The Americans now in Arizona are 

 restoring and have now restored irrigating 

 canals that once fed and maintained a 

 heavy population. 



Through a system of irrigation lately 

 adopted in Louisiana, rice crops are suc- 

 cessfully grown on elevated bench lands 

 that lay above the stream and river. It 

 was formerly necessary to grow this crop 

 in swampy land that could be easily 

 flooded. Now the water is lifted by cen- 

 trifugal or other kinds of pumps, the land 

 flooded and the crop grown. The land 

 is drained and the rice cut with a har- 

 vester, the same that is used to harvest 

 wheat in Dakota. With their sixty-four 

 inches of rainfall annually the Louisiana 

 farmer finds it advantageous to irrigate 

 his oat and corn crop. 



Of the States that have actively taken 

 up this question in the last three years, 

 we find Nebraska leading. Canals have 

 been constructed, or are now under con- 

 struction, that will irrigate over a million 

 acres of her surface. The cost of these 

 canals for their irrigating capacity does 

 not exceed in the great majority of cases 

 over $2 per acre. 



Nebraska is now rapidly following her 

 sister State of Kansas in the erection of 

 thousands of the new irrigation windmills. 

 These mills have from four to five times 

 the power of the old farm pumping mills 

 of the same size. The best practical 

 illustration of the difference in these mills 

 is seen upon the farm of Wm. Stafford, of 

 Big Springs, who had at work in 1894 

 three 12-foot and one 14-foot farm mills. 



In the spring of 1895 he placed in posi- 

 tion a 12-foot irrigation windmill attached 

 to a 12-inch direct acting irrigation pump. 

 All the mills pumped the water into the 

 same reservoir, and from the same depth. 

 The 12-foot irrigator, so Mr. Stafford says, 

 pumped more water than the other four. 

 Where windmills are used, reservoirs are 

 always constructed so that a good supply 

 of water may be obtained, in order that 

 when applied it may be conducted rapidly- 

 over the fields. So important is this at- 

 tachment that a mill that will only lift 

 water sufficient to irrigate one or two 

 acres, will with the reservoir irrigate ten 

 or twelve. 



Reservoirs are easily and cheaply con- 

 structed; they are made by throwing up 

 embankments of earth to the height of 

 from six to eight feet, then the water is 

 pumped in and cattle or horses are turned 

 in and driven about until the bottom and 

 sides are thoroughly puddled, sometimes 

 heavy clay is hauled from some clay bed 

 or bank and thrown over the bottom and 

 sides. Again, the farmers hitch their 

 horses to a drag or scraper and drive the 

 team around within until the bottom and 

 sides are securely packed and made water 

 tight. 



Some farmers in Nebraska have at- 

 tempted to utilize about all that can be 

 obtained from mills and pumps. The 

 water is first run through the creamery 

 box, thence through the watering trough 

 in the stock yards, thence to the first res- 

 ervoir from which they intend to cut their 

 ice in winter, thence to a second reservoir 

 where fish are grown, and often a small 

 bathing house is set upon the edge of this 

 reservoir where the youngsters of the 

 family can disrobe and bathe during the 

 summer season. On some of these min- 

 iature lakes small boats are found where 

 the youth of the family can commence 

 training preparatory to a more extended 

 course at Harvard, Yale or Cornell. Pond 

 lilies are planted in some in order to check 

 the evaporation. The cost of these irri- 

 gation plants is not great where the water 

 is not lifted to any great height, the cost 

 varying from $4 to $6 per acreper.the irri- 

 gating capacity of mill and pump where 

 water is not lifted over sixty feet, yet 

 plants are doing good work and irrigating 

 as high as ten acres, pumping from the 

 depth of 150 and 200 feet bothjn Kansas 

 and Nebraska. 



