THE IRRIGATION AUK. 



water that any other sections if started 

 off, in the spring with the ground in the 

 same condition as that of the countries 

 having plenty of rain or snow in winter. 

 If this were not so the development of 

 the arid west for many years to come 

 would be about closed. 



It is very difficult to approximate the 

 duty of water w T hen used in basins. 

 Hardly any one know r s the size of the 

 basins, the amount of water he puts in 

 at a time, or how many times a year they 

 are filled. So irregular is even the same 

 person with this work that I have found 

 it almost impossible to guage it. I 

 have seen much of it and done consider- 

 able myself but it is rarely done twice 

 just alike. Most all this work is done 

 with windmills or some sort of limited 

 supply where it is very difficult to meas- 

 ure the water and none attempt it. 

 There are but two companies that I 

 know of anywhere under which the 

 basins are used to any extent that make 

 the records of the w^ater officers of any 

 value. Under one of these the basins 

 are so large as almost to approach flood- 

 ing. One can here get so large a head 

 of water that very large basins can be 

 filled two or three times the same day 

 on ten acres. I find the amount used is 

 about an acre foot during the summer, 

 but the rain fall is here about twenty- 

 two inches. 



At another place the pipes are so 

 small and the w r ater supply so limited 

 that a six-inch head for twelve hours 

 or a twelve-inch head for six hours is 

 about the best the most accomodating 

 ditch tender can do for you. The 

 amount used here is about half an acre 

 foot also used during the summer, this 

 with a rainfall of about twenty inches. 



Where the rainfall much exceeds 

 twenty inches, no reliable data are avail- 

 able as it is mainly in the mountains or 

 foothill canyons where the irrigation is 

 of the crudest and most wasteful kind. 

 Outside of San Diego county, California, 

 I do not know of the basin system being 

 used on a rainfall much less than twenty 

 inches, there it is used in some places 



where the precipitation is as low as five 

 with a maximum of about fifteen, run- 

 ning one to twenty-six, but with an 

 average of about nine. Where nothing 

 better can be done this certainly pays 

 where one does one's own work and 

 attends closely to it. 



You will remember that an inch under 

 four inch pressure runs about 4,750.00'.) 

 gallons a year. With 1,000 trees on ten 

 acres, 1,000 gallons a year to a tree 

 w r ould require 1.000.000 gallons. This 

 would be an inch to about forty-seven 

 acres, or about three and one half acre 

 inches. This would give each tree 200 

 gallons (or about six barrels as they are 

 filled) at a time five times a year. It 

 is certain that some orchards that pay 

 over $100 an acre do not get more than 

 this. There are places w r here this is 

 doubled but they are the exception. 

 They cannot use much more than an 

 inch to forty acres because they do not 

 have it. While the duty of a windmill 

 is hard to ascertain it is not hard to draw 

 the line it cannot exceed. As before 

 stated this style of work is bad where it 

 is possible to do anything better. But 

 it certainly does pay in many places. 

 ,And for a large portion of the United 

 States where the rainfall is just a trifle 

 short or too irregular, and where the 

 nature of the product will not justify 

 more expensive systems, such irrigation 

 may mean the difference between a pros- 

 perous country and a cattle range. For 

 to make a country prosperous it by no 

 means follows that even the greater 

 part needs irrigation. Give a man one 

 hundred and sixty acres of many kinds 

 of land and you do him an injury. You 

 might better give him a piece of desert 

 and clean him out with neatness and 

 dispatch so that he will have some 

 time and money to go somewhere else. 

 Much of the semi-desert will do .the 

 same, but use up his life and money, 

 but if he can irrigate twenty, or even 

 ten acres of it he may stay and prosper, 

 working the rest on the rain when it 

 comes; and five, and even two acres, well 

 watered, will often enable him to do the 

 same. 



