40 



THE IREIGATION AGE. 



PREPARING LAND FOR IRRIGATION IN NEBRASKA. 



The leveling, grading, or smoothing of fields for 

 irrigation has been little practiced in Nebraska. The 

 natural smoothness and uniformity of the prairies has 

 made it possible to conduct water over large areas with- 

 out leveling. Moreover, under a majority of the canals 

 in the State only a part of the land which can be irri- 

 gated has water applied to it regularly, and naturally 

 that which can be brought under irrigation with the 



METHODS OF APPLYING WATER METHODS IN USE IN 



CALIFORNIA. THE CHECK SYSTEM. 



Flooding crops in checks or compartments has been 

 practiced in various forms from the earliest antiquity. 

 It is still a common method of applying water in 

 many of the irrigated regions of Asia, Africa, and 

 Europe, and was introduced into western United States 

 by the Spaniards, Mexicans, and Mexican Indians. On 

 the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and else- 



Leveler. 



least preliminary expense is first used. It is undoubt- 

 edly true, however, that in many instances the outlay 

 necessary to smooth the surface of the fields would 

 have been more than repaid through the easier distri- 

 bution of the water and increased yield of crops. Tracts 

 which lie in or near the sand-hill region frequently 

 abound in humps or small hillocks, which hinder the 

 even and effective distribution of the water. Many of 

 the irrigated tracts are also dotted by small, shallow 

 depressions said to be old buffalo wallows. These de- 

 pressions catch and hold the water which reaches them 

 either in irrigation or from rainfall, and the drowning 

 of the crop results. A few such fields have been 

 smoothed, but they are small and scattered, so that no 

 practice has been established, and representative figures 

 relating to cost can not be secured. Work has been 

 done on some fields in the Platte Valley to the ex- 

 tent of from $1 to $5 per acre. 



where in the Southwest one still sees crops of grain, 

 alfalfa, and vegetables grown and irrigated in small 

 rectangular check beds. The small areas inclosed and 



Homemade level. 



the low banks which form the boundaries closely re- 

 semble the basins in irrigated orchards. There may be 

 from ten to fifty check beds on a single acre, and the 

 manner of flooding the check beds is much the same 

 as that described in basin irrigation. 



Californians, in adopting this foreign mode of irri- 

 gation, introduced many changes to adapt it to Ameri- 



