PUMP IRRIGATION PROFITABLE. 



At a recent meeting of the Fresno, Cal. 

 Farmers' Institute Prof. Fowler spoke on 

 the question "Will Pumping Pay?'' The 

 Professor had sent out a half hundred 

 letters on the subject and deducted his 

 opinion from them. 



Almost without exception these answers 

 showed the decided opinion that pumping 

 will pay. The replies showed that an 

 acre is irrigated at a cost ranging from 50 

 cents to $14.50, and the man that had 

 expended $14.50 an acre for pump irriga- 

 tion declared that it paid him to do it. 



The speaker cited instances to prove 

 his proposition, and urged that the Fresno 

 county farmers try pumping for irrigation. 

 He thought that in this way land in 

 Fresno county could be irrigated for a 

 cost less than $1 an acre. This would be 

 considerably cheaper than buying water 

 from the irrigation company at the 

 present rates. 



Centrifugal pumps cost from $75 up- 

 wards. Gasoline engines are successfully 

 used for power purposes; also threshing 

 engines are sometimes used, for which 

 straw furnishes a cheap fuel. 



It must be remembered that the profit- 

 ableness of pumping for irrigation depends 

 largely on the distance or height to 

 which the water must be rasied. Doubling 

 the height means, practically, quad- 

 rupling the cost. Very large quantities 

 of water can be cheaply pumped from 

 shallow wells say from ten to thirty feet. 

 In this section, where surface wells run 

 from sixty to two hundred feet, the cost 

 becomes excessive. 



Irrigation by pumping from deep wells 

 can only be profitable where a large 

 revenue per acre can be obtained. In 

 this part of the country pumping by 



means of windmills has proven a farce to 

 many a man who has spent his hard- 

 earned dollars for nothing, simply because 

 he failed to understand the laws of hy- 

 draulics. Citrograph. 



POSTPONED DREAM. 



Collier's Weekly recently contained the 

 following from the pen of John Bojiner: 



In June, 1891, it was believed by many 

 that the Colorado desert was going to 

 disappear from the face of the earth. 

 Ingenious speculations on the effects of 

 the change on the climate of southern 

 California appeared in the papers. But, 

 with the summer of 1891, tte water in the 

 Colorado declined, and before the autumn 

 there were only a few inches in the stream 

 at Algodones, Meanwhile there was no 

 relaxation in the terrific heat in the 

 region now covered by water and the 

 evaporation was immense. Maj. Powell 

 estimated the annual evaporation at a 

 hundred inches, which is only about half 

 the yearly evaporation in the bay of 

 Bengal. When the supply of water from 

 the river fell off, while the loss from the 

 evaporation continued, it was a mere 

 question of time when the new sea should 

 dry up. That is what happened, and 

 dreams of reclaiming the Sahara of Cal- 

 ifornia were postponed until now. 



Whether the freshet of 1899 will throw 

 into the gnat hollow more water than the 

 sun can lick up remains to be seen. The 

 process of throwing the sui plus water of 

 the Colorado into the desert could, of 

 course, be assisted by engineering works 

 on the river bank; it is possible that they 

 may be attempted this year. Lieutenant 

 Williamson of the engineers, who sur- 

 veyed the desert nearly half a century- 



