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THE DIVERSIFIED FARM 



In diversified farming by irrigation lies the salvation of agriculture 



The Age wants to brighten the pages of its Diversified Farm department and with this purpose In 

 view it requests its readers everywhere to send in photographs and pictures of fields, orchards and 

 farm homes; prize-taking horses, cattle, sheep or hogs. Also sketches or plans for convenient and 

 commodious barns, hen houses, corncribs, etc. Sketches of labor- saving devices, such as ditch clean- 

 ers and watering troughs. A good illustration of a windmill irrigation plant is always interesting:. 

 Will you help us improve the appearance of The Age? 



THE AMOUNT OF WATER NEEDED FOR 

 EACH IRRIGATION. 



BY F. C. BARKER, OF NEW MEXICO. 



THE amount of water needed for irriga- 

 tion in the arid regions is a very diffi- 

 cult problem to solve. So much depends 

 upon varying circumstances, such as the 

 kind of crops, quality of soil and the 

 amount of evaporation. As a rule, I think, 

 writers upon this subject err in fixing the 

 quantity of water too low. Indeed, there 

 seems to be a kind of rivalry as to who 

 shall lower the record. I will, however, 

 give a practical instance of how much 

 water actually may be needed, as it will 

 be of considerable service to gardeners and 

 others who contemplate erecting windmill 

 pumps. 



In June last I erected an eight-foot wind- 

 mill and pump, lifting water about twenty- 

 one feet into a reservoir holding 55,000 

 gallons of water. Theoretically the pump 

 would lift 800 gallons per hour, with a 

 fifteen mile breeze, which would fill the 

 reservoir in seventy hourp, or say Ihree 

 days. But fifteen-mile breezes cannot be 

 relied upon to blow continuously every 

 day, and as a matter of fact it usually 

 takes twelve to sixteen days to fill the res- 

 ervoir. Presuming that it was filled and 

 emptied twenty-four times in the year, 

 there would be enough water to cover two 

 acres of land with twenty- four inches of 

 water in the course of the year. Now, mos-t 

 writers on irrigation maintain that this 

 amount of water is sufficient for anything, 

 and indeed that, with proper cultivation, 

 even twelve inches are sufficient. But an 

 ounce of practice is worth a pound of the- 

 ory, and this is what I actually found in 

 practice to be the amount of water needed. 



I had put in an acre of strawberries, and 

 the windmill and pump were erected so as 

 to give water in case the river, from which 



we usually irrigate, went dry late in the 

 summer, which it is very apt to do. We 

 got our last irrigation from the river oil 

 July 2, and on July 15, as my reservoir 

 was full, I decided to irrigate from that, 

 although the strawberries had not yet be- 

 gun to suffer from drouth, and the soil at 

 the depth of five or six inches was quite 

 moist. The water in the reservoir was 

 about four feet six inches deep, and the 

 outlet (6x4) emptied it in a little over two 

 hours, so that we had a good head of water, 

 indeed as much as the laterals would carry. 

 The actual amount of land irrigated was 

 just four-sevenths of an acre, so that the 

 soil had taken up three and a half inches 

 of water. There had been very little loss 

 by seepage in the laterals, as these had 

 been previously puddled by muddy water 

 of the river, and as I have said before, the 

 lund was by no means exceptionally dry. 

 The beds were irrigated by the flooding 

 system, but had I opened up small furrows 

 by means of a band wheel plow, I daresay 

 I could have easily irrigated three-quarters 

 of an acre, using, say three inches of water. 

 These results go to show that crops like 

 strawberries, needing an irrigation during 

 the dry season every ten or fifteen days, 

 will require from six to nine inches of 

 water in the month, which is a totally 

 different theory to twenty-four inches in 

 the year. One ought to reckon by the 

 month and not by the year, for there are 

 many months in the year in which little or 

 no water will be required. Compared with 

 many of the results of windmill irrigation, 

 which are given in the papers and printed 

 as testimonials, the above looks very much 

 like a failure. So far as I am concerned, 

 it was a success, for it saved my strawber- 

 ries, which at a very low estimate are worth 

 $300, which was just the cost of the wind- 

 mill, pump and reservoir, so that the in- 

 ns 



