104 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ants, occupied these prairies with their herds of horses 

 and cattle until rice growing in the closing years of 

 the nineteenth century changed the face of the coun- 

 try as no fairy wand could have changed it. Stock 

 raising as the dominant industry of the people gave 



< c uitesy Division of Publications. 



BINDERS AT WORK, RAYWOOD, TEXAS. 



way to rice growing, and prairies which fifteen or 

 twenty years ago were dotted with lowing herds became 

 noisy with the songs of harvesting machines and the 

 promising clatter of the separator. Land values re- 

 sponded immediately to the influence 

 of the change from pastoral to inten- 

 sive agricultural conditions. Prairie 

 land worth $1 per acre for raising 

 ponies and dewlapped cattle soon 

 brought $10 per acre, the price rising 

 rapidly to $20, $40, and even $50 per 

 acre for choice locations in 1902. 



Owing to the topographical charac- 

 ter of this country the method of 

 supplying water for the irrigation of 

 rice differs materially from that em- 

 ployed in the arid and semi-arid 

 States. The water supply is contained 

 in sluggish bayous and streams which 

 are from 5 to 70 feet below the land 

 to be irrigated. This water must be 

 lifted by pumps, and a series of three 

 or four supplementary lifts are often 

 necessary to get the water sufficiently 

 elevated to reach the higher lands. 

 The average lift of these pumps is 

 about 20 feet and their discharge va- 

 ries between 1,00.0 gallons and 50,000 

 gallons per minute. The water from 

 the pumps is discharged into a flume 

 and carried to the first canal, which 

 conveys it as far as the contour of 

 the surface will permit. These canals are not dug into the 

 earth, hut a strip of the highest land is fenced in, as 

 it were, by two levees thrown up on either side and 

 running parallel. The water at one end of the canal 



is exactly the same height as at the other end, and if 

 no means were provided to withdraw it, overflow would 

 occur on both sides from one end of the canal to the 

 other. At the farther end of the canal, if the land to 

 be irrigated has not yet been reached, another pumping 

 plant is established, which again lifts 

 the water, emptying it into a still 

 higher flume and by which it is car- 

 ried to a higher canal. There is suffi- 

 cient grade to the land along the 

 canal, on one or both sides, to carry 

 the water by lateral canals to the lands 

 to be irrigated. Contour levees 12 to 

 18 inches high are run across the fields 

 of rice often enough to permit any en- 

 tire "cut" or field to be covered with 

 water so that the depth on the lower 

 side will not exceed 10 or 12 inches. 

 Rice being a water plant, requires a 

 completely saturated soil to bring it to 

 maturity, and it is the practice to keep 

 the fields covered with water for a pe- 

 riod varying between 50 and 70 days. 

 At first glance it would appear that 

 enormous values of water would be re- 

 quired, but careful measurements 

 show that the duty of water in rice 

 growing is fully twice as great as it 

 is when used for the ordinary farm 

 crops of the irrigation States. That is 

 to say, the four or more feet required 

 to be diverted where the soils are grav- 

 elly and very porous is reduced to two 

 feet or less in the rice districts, where the loamy and 

 clay soils hold water without loss except that due to 

 evaporation. On this account seepage losses, which are 

 a very important factor in irrigation in the North- 



Courtesy Division 

 PLOWING RICE 



of Publications. 



FIELDS WITH CATTLE, BAYOU PLAQUEMINE, LOUISIANA. 



west, do not interest the rice planter. However, the 

 latter has troubles of his own, especially along streams 

 and bayous where over-appropriation prevails. 



It is a matter of interest to know that nearly all of 



