68 



I HE IRRIGATION AGE. 



as shown in accompanying diagram. The 

 pipes into the ditches can be made of lath, 

 cut in two lengths, and nailed together 

 sidewise, making a V shaped trough to fit 

 into V shaped notches, cut in the side of 

 the large trough. If the bed was quite 

 large the trough could be moved along, ir- 

 rigating a part of the bed at a time, con- 

 ducting the water from the hydrant into 

 the trough by means of the hose. I think 

 this would be the cheapest and a very easy 

 way to irrigate a small plot of ground. I 

 will let you know later what success we 

 have. I was first interested in irrigation 

 by the study of conditions in the state of 

 Washington and the immense crops of 

 fruit, potatoes, alfalfa, etc., which they 

 raise in some parts of the state under the 

 irrigation ditch. 



A DRY SEASON. 



In reviewing the year's business at Chi- 

 cago, which may be taken as fairly repre- 

 sentative of the great cattle markets of 

 the country, the Live Stock World says: 



"While current belief was that the 

 whole total of all kinds of cattle in the 

 country was phort, the market movement 

 began early to show an increase over the 

 previous year. But it remained for the 

 beginning of the drouth period to start a 

 volume of cattle to market that would as- 

 tonish humanity and send statisticians 

 back into the last decade of the nineteenth 

 century for a parallel. The total receipts 

 for 1901 exceeding that of the prievous 

 year by 300,000 and providing the largest 

 since 1894. 



With the coming on of the drouth, 

 which began to be seriously felt in July, 

 an era of record breaking receipts was 

 ushered in. There was a general rush from 

 all over the corn states to get rid of stock 

 and the markets were at once flooded with 

 cattle in everything but killing condition. 

 Since April 25th, 1892, the one day rec- 

 ord for cattle receipts had stood at 32,677 

 but on July 24th, 1901, this record went 



to smash and since then 35,472 stands as 

 the banner day's cattle record in the his- 

 tory of the Chicago Union Stock yards. 

 The week of Sept. 19th, 1891, still stands 

 as the banner cattle week, when 95,524 

 was the record, the highest week of this 

 year having been for the one ending July 

 27th when 81,208 cattle arrived, but the 

 year beats all former records for one month 

 the September total having been 447,889 

 against 385,466, the former month record 

 which was for September, 1892. 



Up to the beginning of the drouth per- 

 iod the range of prices for beef cattle had 

 stood comparatively narrow, in fact the 

 spread between poorest and best grades 

 was fairly normal, but when these drouth 

 cattle began to pour in in numbers never 

 before equaled at this market, which is 

 equivalent to saying they were world beat- 

 ers, there was an accompanying widening 

 out in the range of price?. While in Jan- 

 uary the spread between cheapest 900 Ib. 

 killers and the best 1500 Ib. beeves was 

 $2.80 per hundred weight, in November it 

 was $3 50. The narrowest range of prices 

 for any month during the year was in 

 June, when on deductions made from the 

 weights mentioned above the extreme range 

 was $1.90 At Chicago the top prices on 

 Texas cattle each month for the past 

 three years were: 



1901 1900 1899 



January $4 85 $5 90 $5 25 



February 5 05 5 15 5 05 



March 4 <lo 5 40 6 00 



April.. 5 40 5 40 5 35 



May 4 90 5 05 5 00 



June 5 60 5 35 5 15 



July . ... 5 20 5 40 5 65 



August 5 25. 4 90 5 35 



September 4 7U 4^5 515 



October 4 10 4 50 4 65 



November 4 75 5 00 6 75 



December.. 5 15 5 -0 5 50 



Top. 



5 60 5 90 6 75 



