182 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



drained, and appointing commissioners for such pur- 

 pose and directing them to proceed with the work of 

 drainage. The Superintendent of Public Works is 

 hereby authorized and empowered to pay so much of 

 such moneys as may be necessary, to the said commis- 

 sioners to be used by them in paying for the work done 

 under the said judgment of the Supreme Court ; and for 

 such purpose the comptroller is hereby authorized to 

 pay such moneys to the Superintendent of Public 

 Works. 



"Section 2. This act shall take effect immedi- 

 ately." 



The bill was referred to the Committee on Finance. 



CORRESPONDENCE 



TO IMPROVE BADGER MARSHES. 



Representative Davidson has been engaged during 

 the past month in consultation with the officials of the 

 Department of Agriculture at Washington re- 

 garding plans for draining and utilizing the marshes 

 and peat bog lands in central Wisconsin, notably those 

 in Waushara and Adams Counties, with a view to ascer- 

 taining what "can be done by the experts of the Depart- 

 ment to make those lands useful for agricultural pur- 

 poses. Mr. Davidson has talked over the matter with 

 Chief Witney, of the Bureau of Soils, and it is the plan 

 of that official to make an investigation of the State 

 during the coming season. 



Under the drainage laws of 1897 certain duties 

 connected with construction and maintenance of State 

 ditches are imposed on county commissioners. County 

 commissioners are not mentioned in the title of the 

 1897 enactment, and as a result of the omission some 

 commissioners have blocked ditch work by declining to 

 recognize the law. Mr. Perley would remedy the situ- 

 ation by a bill introduced in the House yesterday. St. 

 Paul Globe. 



A syndicate of capitalists of St. Louis are to con- 

 struct a dredging machine at a cost of $50,000 to take 

 gravel out of the Mississippi river between the Hanni- 

 bal bridge and the wharf boats for railroads entering the 

 city. The gravel will be used as ballast. One dredg- 

 ing machine has already been constructed to take out 

 gravel for the Burlington. 



A Michigan City (Ind.) correspondent says: 

 "Treasurer Bohland has sold the drainage bonds, 

 amounting to $79,500 for the construction of the 

 Kankakee river ditch, to the New National bank of Co- 

 lumbus, Ohio. The bonds commanded a premium." 



BAREFOOTED WEALTH. 



Oh, barefoot boy so brown of hue, 

 In truth, I'm envious of you ! 

 Your battered hat, your sunburned cheeks, 

 Your knowledge of the woods and creeks 

 The careless whistle you possess 

 Are wealth I would again profess. 

 The future without bounds is thine 

 The meager, narrowed past is mine. 



Oh, barefoot boy dost know that thou 

 Art richer than thy father now? 

 To feed the calf thy weight of care; 

 The world thine own if thou but dare ! 

 Thy father toils from day to day, 

 Forgetful of himself alway. 

 As men count wealth, a poor man he, 

 And yet all things are his in thee. 



TACOMA, WASH., April i, 1903. 

 EDITOR IRRIGATION AGE: 



In your issue of February, the answer to B. J. Mc- 

 Intire's inquiry (p. 117) attracted attention, from there being 

 a seeming endorsement of the undershot wheel. There is a 

 system with a special plant which is so far ahead of the under- 

 shot wheel that it is almost absurd to make comparison. I 

 will state, for the information of your readers, that a test 

 of a machine used in this system was witnessed by myself 

 and several others, in which, under a 54-inch head, a small 

 model generated y$ horse power. The model had only 13-32- 

 inch cranks, and had three paddle-blades abreast, each six 

 inches square, in chambers, and connected by the shaft. The 

 operation of approximately nine inches of water on these 

 paddle-blades generated the amount of power specified, above. 



A larger machine, under a four-foot head, generated 

 power enough to pump a column of water eighteen feet 

 high, of sufficient volume to irrigate 1,100 acres of land. 

 This machine is entirely automatic when installed, and is evi- 

 dently destined to revolutionize the irrigation of land. One 

 feature of the system is its economy of water. The amount 

 of land which could be irrigated by it from a given amount 

 of water would greatly exceed the area irrigated by gravity 

 ditch. It will be readily perceived that the gravity system is 

 an extravagant user of water, owing to the vast quantities 

 that are lost by evaporation, seepage and leakage. 



Take the case of any long ditch, and we have vast initial 

 expense, waste of land and heavy maintenance charges. This 

 waste is avoided to the extent to which a saving is effected in 

 length of ditch. 



The system referred to takes the weight and impetus 

 of the water in a current or head, transforms it to power, 

 .using this to raise by a novel and exceedingly effective pump 

 the necessary water in such volume as may be demanded at a 

 point nearest to the land. The machine can be built for any 

 condition or location specially. It is not a flimsy current 

 motor, but a massive engine, capable of taking a high percent- 

 age of the power in the entire volume of a river, at succeed- 

 ing points, to the full depth of rivers of large volume, and 

 without expenditures of fuel, or any but casual supervision, 

 using this to pump water by the valveless pump built on 

 the same principle as the motor, and of almost indefinate 

 capacitv. 



There is no doubt that, to some extent, especially in cases 

 where tracts of fertile arid land lie along water courses of 

 insufficient volume to furnish the area with water by gravity 

 ditch, trouble will arise from the wastefulness of the latter 

 system. 



Another advantage possessed by this machinery is that 

 standardized plants can be used by the individual rancher 

 on his tract from ten acres up indeed, it could accommodate 

 the owner of an acre tract. In reference to this plant, an 

 experienced hydraulic engineer, of Holyoke, Mass., used 

 the expression, "It is a perfect machine perfect in principle 

 and in operation." Another gentleman stated that it was 

 "the greatest invention of the twentieth century." These 

 parties saw the machine in operation, raising under a four- 

 foot head 3,000 gallons of water per minute, over eighteen 

 feet high, under exceedingly disadvantageous circumstances. 

 The machine which accomplished this work was only thirteen 

 feet long by five feet wide. It may be surmised or calcu- 

 lated, therefore, from the data above what work would be 

 accomplished by a motor having a paddle-blade exposure 

 to the energy of the water of 2,700 square feet. The 3,000 

 gallons were raised by three blades, each four feet square, 

 making forty-eight square feet; the larger machine should, 

 therefore, raise 168,000 gallons of water per minute to the 

 same height eighteen feet under the same conditions. The 

 power thus generated could .be duplicated again and again 

 along the water course. The above remarks presuppose the 

 utilizing of a stream of sufficient volume. The sum of the 

 matter is that as much of the power of a river as can be pos- 

 sibly generated hydraulically can be so generated by this 

 machinery, whether used under a head or in a current, and 

 that this can be conducted at intervals along the entire 

 course. From observation of the tests it was evident that 

 it would efficiently supply power for large manufacturing 

 concerns without the expenditure of an ounce of fuel. It so 



