408 THE IRRIGA TION A GE . 



cattle understand the arrangement, and whenever they are thirsty 

 start for the nearest windmill, where they always find an abundance 

 of good water. 



These artificial sources of supply are never polluted and the 

 cattle escape the diseases that are often produced by drinking surface 

 water. It costs $20 to bore a well, and the windmill, tank and attach- 

 ments can be put up for $50 or $60 more. 



Irrigation begins about the longitude of the town of McCook and 

 a considerable area of what was formerly cattle pasture is now under 

 cultivation. Companies have been formed to build irrigating canals, 

 some with local capital, but most of them with money from Lincoln, 

 Omaha and Denver. There is a good deal of Chicago money invested 

 in irrigation ditches, which have proved to be profitable as well as 

 secure investments. At Bayard, in the northwestern part of the 

 state, a ditch eighteen miles long, which takes its water from the 

 Platte river and is capable of supplying 15,000 or 20,000 acres, has 

 been built by the farmers themselves, without money or stock or 

 bonds. It did not cost a dollar in cash. Every shovelful of earth 

 was handled by the men who own it. A co-operative partnership 

 was formed and each member undertook to complete a certain section 

 of the canal. Some dug a mile, others half a mile and some not more 

 than a quarter of a mile, and their interests in the property are rated 

 accordingly. They are now organized into a company, with a. 

 manager, who receives a monthly salary for looking after affairs. 

 The primary object of the enterprise was to irrigate their own farms^ 

 but they are now selling water at the very low rate of 50 cents an 

 acre for the season as an inducement for people to take up the 

 adjoining lands and build their own connecting ditches. The result 

 has been to increase the value of farm property in a remarkable 

 manner, for wherever water can be obtained by irrigation the crops 

 are always sure and plentiful. 



This is beyond the corn belt, but wheat will run forty-five and 

 fifty bushels to the acre, oats seventy and eighty and barley and 

 other grain accordingly, with never a failure. Alfalfa, fruits and 

 vegetables are always sure and grow with great luxurience, although 

 irrigated fruit and vegetables have not so good a flavor as those 

 raised by the natural rainfall, because so much of the growth, 

 goes to fiber. 



Alfalfa is the great crop of the middle section of Nebraska. 

 There is less labor and more profit in it than any other. It is what 

 they call a "dead cinch" every year. Neither drought nor grass- 

 hoppers nor any other of the evils that have afflicted the farms of 

 Nebraska ever interfere with the alfalfa field. It is an audacious and 

 a stubborn plant and will grow in spite of all obstacles on the clay 

 hills and other places where the land isn't good for anything else 

 and the wise farmer makes profit out of that perversity. They call 



