146 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



foot a second, but a much better measure 

 is the acre foot or acre inch. This is the 

 quantity needed to cover an acre a foot 

 deep or an inch deep. It brings it to the 

 basis of rain and is more easy to under- 

 staud. Owing to loss from direct run-off, 

 the coming of rain when not needed and 

 the evaporation from the top soil of quan- 

 tities too small to be of service it will on 

 an average require two feet of rain as it 

 commonly comes to equal in results one 

 acre foot of water properly applied at the 

 right times and with no more waste than 

 is absolutely unavoidable to ensure wetting 

 of the lower side of the tract. 



The amount needed for any given crop is 

 so dependent upon the nature of the soil, 

 the climate, the rainfall and its time and 

 manner of coming with the skill of the 

 irrigator, the perfection to which he wishes 

 to bring the crop, and so many other 

 things that it is very difficult to lay down 

 general rules. But the subject mufet be 

 understood as far as possible by every one 

 who wants to make much of a success of 

 irrigation. 



The duty of water is generally estimated 

 by dividing the number of acres entitled 

 to the water of a ditch by the number of 

 cubic feet a second or inches which the 

 ditch is supposed to carry, alleged to con- 

 tain or supposed to be capable of carrying 

 if in good condition. This debits the duty 

 of water with all waste and all errors 

 about the quantity flowing. Both of 

 these are very great, especially the waste 

 where the whole capacity of the ditch is 

 not yet called for by the rate of settlement 

 and the loss of water consequently imma- 

 terial. You might as well try to find the 

 duty of meat by dividing the number of 

 pounds taken in the kitchen door of a five 

 dollar hotel by the number of guests on 

 the register. When this method is ex- 

 tended to all the ditches in the country, 

 and the area supposed to be under them 

 divided by the water supposed to be in 

 them all, we get the charming figure of 

 about fifty-four acres to a cubic foot a 

 second. This will cover an acre about 

 fourteen feet deep. While our esteemed 

 Department of Agriculture no doubt does 

 the best it can with the data available the 

 monstrous absurdity of the conclusion 

 should be so patent as to forbid its publi- 

 cation. It can only mislead people into 

 thinking irrigation out of the question in 

 thousands of places where it can be used 



to great advantage. Nothing could dis- 

 courage the investment of capital in irriga- 

 tion works like the belief that any such 

 quantity of water is necessary and no one 

 would want to irrigate if he had to put on 

 fourteen acre feet even in a whole year. 

 Nothing but coarse sand or gravel could 

 take any such quantity without making 

 a swamp of the place, while ground fine 

 enough to be worth cultivating at all never 

 needs over one-third of that amount even 

 in the hottest countries where the rainfall 

 is practically nothing. Waste is sometimes 

 justifiable where water is plenty because 

 it may save labor. It may pay to turn a 

 large stream into furrows so as to force 

 the water through quickly while you do 

 something else instead of standing thereto 

 coax it. But this is waste and should not 

 be charged against the duty of water. The 

 future prosperity of the west is bound up 

 in the development of water and the 

 farther it can be proved to go the easier it 

 will be to get the needed capital. 



The uncertainty as to the duty of water 

 is farther increased by the common way of 

 counting by the rate at which water is 

 used during a certain period called the 

 "irrigating season" and not by the quan- 

 tity actually put upon the ground during 

 the year. This irrigating season varies so 

 with the locality, the climate, rainfall and 

 products as to increase the uncertainty. 



WATEK ON TEN ACRES. 



Here is the water amount of a ten acre 

 tract in miscellaneous stuff in one of the 

 most prosperous settlements of Southern 

 California. It is taken from the books of 

 the company and shows exactly the num- 

 ber of twenty-four hour inches put on the 

 tract that year. The water right was one 

 inch to ten acres. 



May., thirty inches ... twenty-four hour's run. 

 June. . .forty-five inches .. .sixteen hour's run. 

 July. . .thirty inches. . .twenty-four hour's run. 



August sixty-inches. . .twelve hour's run. 



Sept. . .forty- five inches... .sixteen hour's run. 

 October sixty-inches. .. .twelve hour's run. 



You see that in six months the owner 

 used one hundred and eighty twenty-four 

 hour inches. But under the water-right 

 there was due the tract the equivalent of one- 

 inch for three hundred and sixty-five days. 

 This would be three hundred and sixty-five 

 twenty-four hour inches, where as he used 

 only one hundred and eighty. What then 

 became of the other one hundred and 

 eighty-five twenty-four hour inches? 



