52 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



purpose of watering the choice plain lands 

 and maintaining a steady and uniform 

 flow in the lower Mississippi and the Mis- 

 souri rivers. 



A Wedge An amendment by Senator 

 Inserted. Warren to the River and 

 Harbor bill, providing for an appropriation 

 in the interest of irrigation development 

 is a new departure, and all the interior 

 States of the West are directly interested 

 in it. Heretofore such appropriations 

 have been almost wholly confined to the 

 ocean coasts and large rivers. The amend- 

 ment in question provides that surveys 

 shall be made with a view to impounding 

 the head waters of the large rivers, with 

 the double purpose to prevent floods in 

 the lower rivers, and to provide for irriga- 

 tion in the valleys below the reservoirs. 



Pestiferous Professor Bailey, of Cornell 

 Reformers. University, makes some 

 strong points in an address which he de- 

 livered before the Michigan State Horti- 

 cultural Society. He claims that but for 

 the pests which we must eradicate to save 

 the crops there would have been slower 

 progress in improving methods of culture, 

 and there would be less stimulation for the 

 cultivation which is necessary to secure 

 the best results. He cites the influence 

 of the potato bug, the Canada thistle, 

 peach yellows, etc. , which at one time and 

 another have threatened the destruction 

 of great industries, as productive of pro- 

 nounced improvements in the treatment of 

 land and plants, and as enforcing the 

 necessity for careful selection of varieties 

 and an exhaustive study of the conditions 

 which surround them. He finds ground 

 for hope that the apple scab will revolu- 

 tionize apple culture in the East and that 

 the Russian thistle which has made its ap- 

 pearance in some of the Eastern States 

 will also wake the farmers up to deeper 

 thought and more vigorous action. 



Western It is a great piece of work 

 Enterprise. that ig being done in the 



Ogden canyon, Utah, it being only second 

 in magnitude to the great power plant at 

 Niagara. A body of water, as large as 

 can be carried through a pipe six feet in 

 diameter, is delivered under a head of 560 

 feet and under a pressure of 200 pounds 

 to the square inch. The lower portion of 

 the immense pipe is made of -j-J- inch sheet 



steel, which is shipped there from the roll- 

 ing mills in sheets eighteen feet long and 

 nine feet wide. A well-equipped machine 

 shop for the manufacture of the pipe has 

 been constructed, having bending rolls, 

 punching machines and riveting machines 

 of the most approved patterns, of immense 

 power. There will be a mile of the steel 

 pipe and five miles of wooden pipe of the 

 same diameter, for which 200 car loads of 

 Oregon pine will be used in making the 

 staves. Ten thousand horse-power will 

 be made available by this construction. 

 The men who conceived and have carried 

 this work forward with such effect that 

 they can announce its completion by Octo- 

 ber of the present year, and in times like 

 these, will hardly be denied credit for 

 courage, boldness and enterprise. Sena- 

 tor Frank J. Cannon is president of the 

 company. 



Wasted Professor Boggs, of the Arizona 

 Water. Experimental Station, calls the 

 attention of irrigators to the great loss of 

 water which results from the use of au 

 excessive number of small laterals. The 

 waste from both evaporation and seepage 

 in such a climate as that of Arizona, or, 

 for that matter, in any of the arid States, 

 is a very large proportion of the total 

 supply, when it is carried for long dis- 

 tances. Where water is scarce it is worth 

 while to consider carefully the location of 

 such ditches so as to limit the number of 

 them, and wherever at all practicable such 

 ditches should be substituted by pipes, or 

 be lined with stone and cement. It is 

 not good business judgment to expend 

 large sums for the conservation of a water 

 supply and for the lack of a little further 

 expenditure permit the loss of a half, or 

 more of it. 



Wisconsin The Wisconsin Experiment 

 Irrigation, station made some tests of 

 supplementary irrigation last year which 

 fully confirmed the good results obtained 

 by Dr. Gapen in Illinois. The yield of 

 corn was increased over 300 per cent, as 

 compared with a non-irrigated crop along- 

 side. Three and a half acres of clover 

 were irrigated at a total cost of $18, with 

 a net gain of five and a half tons of hay, 

 and thirty-one days' pasture for fifty-eight 

 sheep. The time is not very far distant 

 when farmers generally, in all States, will 



