288 



THE IRRIGATION AGL. 



twelve tons to the acre being the usual 

 yield. 



Next to the sugar beet, or possibly of 

 equal importance comes alfalfa. With 

 judicious irrigation an alfalfa field will 

 bear six cuttings a year, yielding a ton to 

 the acre at eacn cutting. A peculiarity 

 about alfalfa grown in the soil of the 

 Pecos valley is that it appears to enrich 

 rather than impoverish it. 



The irrigation system of the valley is 

 constantly being extended by the company 

 and new land brought under cultivation. 

 Taking the past as a criterion it is safe to 

 say that within another three years the 

 number of acres now irrigated wil be 

 more than doubled. 



GEO. H. HUTCHINS. 



RECLAIMING THE LAND. 

 The following extracts are taken from 

 the article on the reclaiming of arid lands, 

 by Wm. E. Curtis, which appeared 

 recently in the Chicago Record : 



"Senator Wilson intends to spend his 

 summer vacation in making a personal 

 investigation of the irrigation problem in 

 the west. Both the interior and the 

 agricultural departments are now at work 

 in that direction. The former, throiigh 

 the division of hydrography of the geo- 

 logical survey, is making a detailed 

 examination of the flovial system west of 

 the Missouri river, for the purpose of 

 ascertaining all the facts that can be 

 learned in regard to the quantity and the 

 value of the rainfall, the water from the 

 melting snows, the courses and habits 

 of the streams, the area of arid lands 

 which may be irrigated by them, the best 

 methdos of distribution, and is making a 

 hydrographic map of the arid region for 

 the use of the government when it 

 attempts to utilize the waters for agri- 

 culture. 



The agricultural department, through 

 Elwood W. Mead, an eminent irrigation 

 engineer of Wyoming, who has his head- 

 quarters at Denver, has attacked the 

 problem from another standpoint. He is 



making experiments to ascertain the 

 amount of water necessary for the culti- 

 vation of different crops in various sec- 

 tions of the arid region, is analyzing the 

 soils and testing the various grains, 

 grasses, vegetables and fruits which thrive 

 best under irrigation. At the same time, 

 in the irrigated states, he is teaching the 

 farmers how to use water to secure the 

 best results, and communicating the 

 results of his experiments and investiga- 

 tions through the regularly published 

 bulletins of the agricultural department. 

 In other words, he is treating the prob- 

 lem from the practical side, while the 

 geological survey people are treating it 

 from the technical side. He works as a 

 far r, they as engineers. 



Sec tary Wilson is going out espec- 

 ially to satisfy himself as to the practi- 

 bility of the reservoir system. There are 

 said to be 600,000,000 acres of land in the 

 western country, now useless because of 

 the absence of water, which may be made 

 productive by irrigation, and provision 

 was sought in the last river and harbor 

 bill for the construction of three experi- 

 mental reservoirs along Piney Creek, 

 Wyoming, for the purpose of demonstrat- 

 ing the feasibility of storing the spring 

 floods for use in dry season. Scientists 

 who have studied the subject maintain 

 that there is plenty of water in the arid 

 regions, but it runs away before it is 

 needed, and the proposition is to contrive 

 some means by which the melting snows 

 and the heavy rainfall in the spring 

 months may be detained until the dry 

 season and distributed where it will do 

 the most good. It has been proposed to 

 construct the three reservoirs named as an 

 experiment for a practical study of the 

 question, but notwithstanding the efforts 

 of Senator Warren, Senator Carter and 

 other representatives of the arid states, 

 the item was knocked out of the appro- 

 priation bill on the last night of. the 

 session. The subject is likely to come up 

 again, however, in the next congress, and 

 Secretary Wilson wants to educate him- 



