MORE PRACTICAL IRRIGATION IN KANSAS. 



BY I. N. PEPPER. 



OOKS county is one of the 

 places in Kansas that is blessed 

 with a fair average rainfall, 

 the amount generally rang- 

 ing from twenty to thirty 

 inches annually, the trouble 

 being that there is frequently no rain 

 when it is needed the most, and possibly 

 plenty of it when it is not wanted. In 

 addition, there are a number of years when 

 there is a general deficiency. 



The county lies just west of the center 

 of the State and thirty miles south of the 

 Nebraska state line. It was organized in 

 1872 and now has 10,000 population, over 

 100 schools, and is crossed by two railroads. 

 The climate is as good as that of any place 

 in the country. The soil is a dark sandy 

 loam and produces first-class crops. Grass 

 covers the entire county where not in culti- 

 vation, affording good pasture all the year 

 round. Hay can be had almost for the 

 cutting, thus making it a good section for 

 stock and dairymen. Water is pure and 

 plentiful in streams, and springs and wells 

 are numerous. 



The first settlers as a rule were grain 

 growers, breaking up the native sod and 

 cultivating about 200,000 acres of this 

 vast meadow. With thirty inches of rain- 

 fall the crops were good, but with only 

 twenty inches they were failures and those 

 who had no cattle left the county. After 

 several more attempts at dry farming, 

 those that remained began to cast about 

 for some method of supplying the small 

 amount of moisture lacking, and of saving 

 the surplus rainfall which they did get 

 occasionally. 



Many plans and suggestions were offered, 

 but the only practical solution was irri- 

 gation supplemented by subsoiling. In- 

 vestigations have demonstrated that there 

 is a sufficiency of water if it is conserved 

 and utilized. Wells are being bored, 

 wind mills and pumps erected, water 

 courses dammed, streams diverted by 

 ditches and every means to impound the 

 water and hold it for a time of need, re- 

 sorted to. 



The results have been gratifying in the 

 extreme, and doubts concerning the arti- 



ficial application of water removed from 

 the minds of the most skeptical. Their 

 only question now is, " How can we irri- 

 gate?" 



There are two irrigation canals in Rooks 

 county, owned respectively by the Bow 

 Creek Irrigation Company and the Stock- 

 ton Irrigation & Power Company. The 

 Bow creek ditch was the first to be built. 

 It is seven and one-half miles long, has a 

 capacity of thirty-five second feet of water 

 and covers about 1,000 acres of land. The 

 Stockton ditch is three miles long, with a 

 capacity of 100 second feet, and waters 

 about 800 acres. It can be considerably 

 extended. 



In addition to the two enterprises men- 

 tioned above, there are a number of small 

 individual irrigation plants. 



Last year was the first in active opera- 

 tion of the Bow creek system, and the 

 crop yields were astonishing. 



Fifty acres of potatoes produced 10,000 

 bushels; onions yielded 600 bushels per 

 acre of fine quality; cabbage four to six 

 tons per acre; turnips 100 bushels on eight 

 square rods, or at the rate of 2,000 bushels 

 an acre. For oats, the land was irrigated 

 in November, 1894, and seed sown in 

 March, 1895; the yield was sixty-five 

 bushels per acre, weighing forty pounds 

 per bushel. In the same field and under 

 the same conditions, except the irrigation, 

 the oats yielded seven bushels an acre; 

 corn, irrigated once, forty to fifty bushels 

 an acre ; the corn not irrigated was a 

 failure. 



On four acres under the Bow creek 

 ditch, F. Near raised 1,100 bushels of best 

 grade potatoes, with an actual expenditure 

 of only $7.00 for labor up to the time of 

 digging. 



An accident was the means of benefit- 

 ting A. Jones. On July 19, 1894, the 

 water broke through the bank of the ditch 

 and flooded an acre of corn. On July 26 

 there was a hot wind, but it in no way 

 affected or injured the acre that was acci- 

 dentally flooded. 



J. K. Wendover raised good corn with 

 one watering, and first-class potatoes. 



Cooper Bros. , under the Stockton ditch, 



