THE 1RRIGA T10N A GE. 1 95 



has only enough water to furnish six acre inches he applies it to his al- 

 falfa and cuts three or four tons per acre, besides having abundant pas- 

 turage in the early spring and late fall. This peculiar child of irrigation 

 can be watered by furrows, flooding, surface or underground methods 

 and continue to produce abundantly for a half century. 



The era of small farms and diversified products has been inaugur- 

 ated by the introduction of irrigation, because one man cannot cultivate 

 and irrigate successfully more than twenty acres, and he divides the 

 products among tne grains, grasses, fruits and vegetables in order to 

 grow all his family and domestic animals require. By intensive soil cul- 

 ture the twenty acre tract yields more profit than under former special 

 cropping of a quarter section. The small farmer is more free and inde- 

 pendent of mortgages, middlemen and seductive sharks who live by aid- 

 ing big farmers to expend their supplies. An American farmer usually 

 irrigates about three acres a day, while the experienced Chinese garden- 

 ers attend to ten acres in the same time. Many of the large farmers and 

 fruit growers of the Pacific coast employ Chinamen for irrigating for 

 the reason that they get over more land and do more effective work in a 

 day than their American contemporaries. One of the best known big 

 farmers of California recently admitted to me that while he and all others 

 demanded tne exclusion of Chinese, they could not continue the irriga- 

 tion of large acres without the Mongolians. 



Irrigation canal companies sell water rights for from ten dollars to 

 one hundred dollars an acre, with an annual rental of about two dollars 

 an acres for maintenance and distributary fees. The right thus sold is 

 supposed to be a perpetual demand upon the corporation for the amount 

 of water purchased, but does not include the use of any water if the yearly 

 rental charges are not paid according to contract. Sometimes water is 

 sold at a certain price per miner's inch or cubic foot, both measurements 

 being made by means of wires placed in the streams or canals. The inch 

 of measurement is equal to a flow of about thirteen gallons per minute 

 in Colorado, or nine gallons per minute in California. The Colorado 

 inch is ascertained by the volume of water' flowing through a square inch 

 hole cut through an inch board, with six inchas water pressure in a set- 

 tling box, while the California inch is the volume passing through an inch 

 square hole, cut through a two inch board, having only four inches pres- 

 sure above the hole. The second foot equals a flow of one cubic foot or 

 four hundred and forty-eight gallons per minute. An acre foot or suf- 

 ficient to cover one acre to the depth of twelve inches is forty- three 

 thousand five hundred and sixty cubic feet. 



A perfect irrigation system constitutes a surface soil scavenger for 

 carrying away all impurities and poisonous odors from decaying vegeta- 

 tion. Malarial troubles are unknown in the land of irrigation because 

 the spores do not form and cannot exist in the pure atmosphere. The 

 water thoroughly washes the surface depositing the decomposed sub- 

 stances in the waste ditches, from which it is carried to the streams and 



