35* 



THE IRRIGATION AGE 



anything that promises a fortune, will 

 save countless families from the fear that 

 leads through despair to destruction. 



Saturday Evening Post. 



FROM PECOS VALLEY, N. M. 

 Carlsbad, Eddy P. O., N. M. June 15, '99. 



Dry weather may not apparently effect 

 a district where a system of irrigation is 

 established, and crops may appear to 

 thrive well enough but a good shower of 

 rain now and then helps matters wonder- 

 fully. Eddy, or rather Carlsbad as it is 

 now called has, for some weeks past, been 

 undergoing a dry spell and while the 

 farmers suffered no loss, sheepmen did, 

 and the cattle men began to look serious 

 also. Within the past few days, however, 

 the Heavens opened and in various parts 

 of the valley heavy showers have fallen, 

 causing a rise in the Pecos river of over 

 five feet in one night, a rise which 

 placed four feet of water in one of the 

 reservoirs of the company known as Lake 

 McMillan and three feet in the other. As 

 these two lakes cover an area of some 

 10,000 acres it can readily be seen that an 

 immense amount of water must have fallen 

 in the upper part of the valley in a s?hort 

 space of time. 



It has been found that while the sugar 

 beet yield is fully up to the average in 

 quantity when cultivated with the assist- 

 ance of irrigation alone, when there is 

 even a modest rainfall the percentage of 

 saccharine matter contained in the beets 

 is largely increased and its purity as 

 well. 



With the aid of the irrigation ditch 

 there now appears to be no Reason why 

 the cultivation of celery should not in 

 time become one of the foremost indus- 

 tries in the valley, especially in the 

 vicinity of Carlsbad where the soil appears 

 to be peculiarly adapted to its growth. 

 On twenty-five acres last year a man near 

 here cleared $5,000 and possibly there will 

 be several similar instances this present 

 season. 



The fruit now ripening in tbe orchards 

 of the valley, the result entirely of irri- 

 gation, possesses a peculiarly sweet and 

 delicious flavor. It is not as full of juice as 

 the California fruit, but it equals it both 

 in eize and in flavor. ARGUS. 



GAINS BY IRRIGATION. 



Irrigation is making great advancement 

 in the interior of Nebraska. All the 

 western part of the state is now under 

 irrigation and the crop prospects of that 

 section are equal to those of the banner 

 section of Nebraska the eastern counties. 

 Fifty bushels of corn to the acre is the 

 estimated yield of the whole irrigated 

 district, while the wheat will be as good 

 as that product in any part of the state. 

 The farmers find that after paying the 

 additional expense of irrigating they still 

 have considerable excess of revenue over 

 those farms better located, where irri- 

 gation is not felt to be necessary. A. M. 

 Allen, a capitalist, who resides in Minne- 

 apolis, Minn. , has enormous irrigated 

 interests at Gothenberg, Neb., the very 

 heart of the irrigated district of the state. 

 Mr. Allen spends several months in the 

 year at Gothenberg. He has just returned 

 from an inspection of the irrigation 

 ditches of that part of the state. In dis- 

 cussing the situation there are at present, 

 Mr. Allen says: 



''Irrigation is an interesting problem 

 and cannot be better illuatrated than tell- 

 ing of what has been realized out in 

 Nebraska around Gothenberg. One man 

 had a field of winter wheat, and in order 

 to determine accurately what results were 

 obtainable from irrigation we sent an 

 engineer out to his place to measure oft 

 and mark a square acre. We made no 

 special effort to select any grain that was 

 better in appearance than the general run 

 of the field, but took an acre just as it 

 came. This plot was carefully marked, 

 cut, thrashed, and separated and yielded 

 sixty-five bushels to the acre. Another 

 man gathered 2.800 bushels of corn from 

 thirty-five acres of irrigated ground, and 

 one small patch of five acres produced 525 

 bushels. The first was an average of 

 eighty bushels to the acre, the latter 105 

 bushels. It is customary to cut irrigation 

 alfalfa four times, and the average crop is 

 about two tons to the acre. These figures 

 are about 40 per cent, better than farmers 

 can do without irrigation on the best lands 

 in Nebraska. As a matter of fact, irri- 

 gation brings farming to an almost exact 

 science and makes it as certain and 

 reliable as banking. It is possible to 



