DEEP WELLS FOR IRRIGATION. 



BY JOEL MOODY. 



The deep well system for irrigation is no longer problematical in 

 Vermilion parish. Hence it has passed from the experimental into 

 the practical realm of agricultural industry. At least twenty-five 

 good successful wells are in operation in the northwestern part of this 

 parish, and when dug deep enough give entire satisfaction. 



These wells are not artesian, neither are they in any sense an 

 overflow. The water never flows forth like a fountain with groat 

 pressures from below like the artesian wells in Nebraska and South 

 Dakota, which are from one to two thousand feet deep. But these 

 wells which are sunk about twd hundred feet seem to have tapped a 

 subterranean sea in which the water supply, like the artesian, is prac- 

 tically inexhaustable. The water rises to within a few feet of the top 

 and has to be pumped. 



Recently it was my pleasure to visit and inspect the irrigation 

 plant of Simms & Wathen, located ten miles west and two miles south- 

 ward from Abbeville. These gentlemen, who own a large tract of 

 land there, have put down four eight-inch wells to a depth of one hun- 

 dred and eighty feet. A less depth in this location does not often 

 reach this great body of clear water and never gives entire satisfac- 

 tion. Often two hundred and twenty feet is still better. 



These four wells, which are within twenty feet of each other, are 

 pumped by a 12-inch submerged rotary, driven by about a fifty-horse 

 power boiler and engine. This is too light a power to come anywhere 

 near testing the capacity of the wells, yet it pumps over three million 

 gallons in twenty- four hours. We witnessed this volume of water, 

 clear as crystal, sparkling and cool, flowing in a large stream from 

 the flume, and drank bountifully of it as it came forth from its sub- 

 terranean sea. 



Since the 8th day of June the pump has run only eighteen days 

 and six hundred acres of the finest stand of rice we have seen in the 

 parish was thoroughly watered. Much of this rice is now three feet 

 high and all of it is very clean and in splendid condition. 



With this power, which is not half sufficient to test the capacity 

 of these wells, it is safely estimated it is sufficient to water one thous- 

 and acres. With the motive power doubled or quadrupled a far better 

 estimate of the value of deep wells could be had, but it is already suf- 

 ficient to take the question far beyond any doubt in regard to it. 



It has been objected to the theory of deep wells that the water is 

 too cold for growing rice. This theory has been exploded by the fact 



