GARDEN IRRIGATION 1 55 



and perhaps watermelons, and even with these, 

 failures have been more numerous than otherwise. To 

 combat the drouth and outwit the grasshoppers are 

 tlierefore the problems to be solved. 



I level the garden by using a common road scraper, 

 taking soil off high places and filling in low places, 

 thus preparing the ground for irrigation. 



The system of irrigation will be easily understood 

 from the accompanying photograph. It contemplates 

 only the use of surplus water not needed by the stock. 

 The well is sixty-one feet deep. The pump is an ordi- 

 nary force pump, two and one-half cylinder, placed 

 two feet from the bottom of the well, with one and 

 one-fourth-inch pipe. The windmill is a Perkins ten- 

 foot, straight stroke, wood wheel, mounted on a twenty- 

 two and one-half-foot steel tower. The water is forced 

 through an inch pipe, from a back cock in the pumn, 

 to a trough in the milkhouse, keeping the milk cool an 1 

 sweet during the hottest weather, and from thence over- 

 flows into a common round stock tank ten feet in 

 diameter. Water not required for the stock was 

 siphoned out with a three-quarter-inch hose and con- 

 ducted to the garden. Frequently the hose was attached 

 directly to the pump, but this was not so satisfactory, 

 as the supply of water was not so constant, and resulted 

 in the upper end of the row getting most of the water, 

 except when the wind blew strong and steady. How- 

 ever, I satisfied myself that cold water, taken directly 

 from the w^ell, w^as as good for irrigation as that that 

 had become warm by standing in the tank. The photo- 

 graph shows the process of irrigating. The ditch 

 between the rows was made by the cultivator, the teeth 

 being set close together, and the w^ater running from 

 the tank through the hose into the ditch. Irrigation 

 was given at any time day or night that the water could 



