INDIVIDUAL IRRIGATION ENTER- 

 PRISES. 



JOEL SHOMAKER. 



The modern farmer who has an individual irrigation plant is the 

 most independent of all agriculturists in the arid west. He can apply 

 the moisture to his crops when necessary, experiment with water duty 

 and develop the science of irrigation to its proper position in the ranks 

 of successful soil husbandry. The man with a ditch, wall, spring or 

 pump at his disposal need not fear drouths, as the rainfall is within 

 his grasp. His seedtime and harvest come with perfect regularity 

 and though his home be located amidst the deserts of desolation he 

 may open the floodgates of the rivers of plant food and let in the sun- 

 shine of life to create an oasis of Eden, crowned with the bowers of 

 paradise. 



One of the most common methods of obtaining an individual water 

 right is the tapping of natural rivers and streams, flowing from the 

 mountains of perpetual snow. Here the irrigation farmer becomes 

 the master of all conditions, by surveying and constructing the 

 waterway leading to his point of distribution. It is a well known law 

 of nature that water will find its level, and if properly handled will 

 form the power necessary for carrying its volume through unnatural 

 channels to the terminal depository. By giving it a fall of only one- 

 sixteenth of an inch to the rod it follows a gravity canal and soon 

 makes a natural course. 



Many of the best farms of the western states are watered by the 

 small ditches, taken from streams by the aid of dams of brush and 

 stone, used to raise and divide the water. This system .prevails par- 

 ticularly in the states of Montana, Idaho and Utah, but is more or less 

 practiced in all small valleys. The ditches are constructed by running 

 a plow two or more times along the proposed line and turning in the 

 water which cuts its way. In most instances the gravity is so great 

 that the ditches require but little attention in cleaning every spring. 

 The original cost of such ditches varies from one dollar to one hun- 

 dred dollars per acre under cultivation, and the maintenance expense 

 is practically nothing. 



A mountain spring when opened and kept clean is one of the best 

 and least expensive sources of water supply for the individual owner. 

 This may be had in almost any canyon, by digging a few feet in the 

 line of a seap coming from a higher watershed. In many instances 

 such springs can be opened by sinking wells in the beds of dry canyon 

 streams, where the underflow is reached and the water brought to the 



