Irrigation Regardless Of 

 Rainfall 



WILL1AMJ E. SHYTHB,' Author; of "The Conqutct of Arid America," etc. 



^ OF THE 



NIVERSITY 





ANY years ago, when irrigation 

 "cranks" were by no means as 

 numerous as they are to-day, I 

 received a telegram from the 

 Superintendent of the State In- 

 sane Asylum at Kankakee, Illi- 

 nois, which read as follows: 



"Send me an expert irrigator at 

 once. Signed, Dr. Clarke Gapen." 

 I was editor of an irrigation journal at the time 

 and was credited with far more knowledge than 

 I actually possessed — a fact which I tried to con- 

 ceal, with what success I do not know. My first 

 thought on receiving the telegram was that the 

 good doctor had joined his unfortunate patients 

 and gone mad. However, I found an irrigator for 

 him and dispatched him to Kankakee. That was 

 the last heard of the matter until the receipt of 

 an enthusiastic letter from Dr. Gapen some time 

 afterwards. 



The doctor explained that he had formerly ex- 

 pended about $15,000 every year for vegetables to 

 supply the great institution under his charge and 

 that it had suddenly occurred to him that if he 

 could control the moisture during the dry period 

 of the Illinois summer he could produce these 

 vegetables on the farm belonging to the asylum. 

 He bought an inexpensive pumping plant and 

 went to work under the advice of his expert 

 rrigator. As a result, he saved the annual ex- 

 penditure for vegetables and a good deal more 

 than paid for the cost of the plant the first year. 

 Now, Illinois is not generally regarded as belong- 

 ing to the arid region. On the contrary, it enjoys 

 a very fair average rainfall. But after his practi- 

 cal experiment, Dr. Gapen made this highly inter- 

 esting statement: 



"I am convinced that if land in Illinois is worth 

 $100 an acre without irrigation, it is worth $500 

 an acre with it." 



A little fact sometimes goes much farther than 

 a large amount of argument. Hence, I am always 

 glad to give the facts about the Kankakee ex- 

 periment when asked if irrigation pays in 

 localities of considerable rainfall. Here is 

 another fact along the same line: 



There was once a market gardener in the 

 neighborhood of a large New England city who 

 always had the earliest, the latest and the best 

 vegetables in the market. His customers could 

 not understand the secret of his success and his 

 competitors were in despair until someone dis- 



