44 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



dred carloads, the seed is purposely kept out of the 

 ground until the rains are su^nosed to be over, so that 

 the weeds can be killed and the soil left fine and loose, 

 with no danger of being packed again? 



It is hard for one raised on a foot of soil lying on 

 rock to believe this, but there are enough other places 

 in the eastern states where a crop of corn surviving a 

 drouth shows that the subsoil is a sponge holding mois- 

 ture long after it has been exhausted on other soils. 

 Almost any deep soil will do it, though some of the 

 softer hard pans hold it quite as well. In the arid 

 regions most of the soils are deep because drifted by 

 wind and rain of ages from the hills forming the val- 

 leys and slopes, or they are alluvial deposits from rivers. 

 In the semi-arid they are much the same, though there 

 are good soils lying farther up the hills right on the 

 rock or shale from which they were formed, but the 



summer they look better than trees in Daggett only a 

 mile away, and sprinkled every day in summer, but 

 never wet in winter or spring. I have raised water- 

 melons on the same desert soil fourteen pounds in 

 weight and of good quality, without a drop of water 

 after the seed was planted, but the ground had been 

 heavily soaked before. These were the Chilian variety, 

 of which the average maximum is only about twenty 

 pounds under best conditions. There was no cultiva- 

 tion and they were mere volunteers from seed dropped 

 there the year before. 



All this has long been known outside of the desert. 

 The Campbell system of dry farming is simply getting 

 water enough into the subsoil and keeping it there. 

 Under flooding the subsoil needs no special packing for 

 heavy flooding will do it well enough. The greater part 

 of the immense grain crop of California has long been 



A Dempster Gasoline Engine and a Centrifugal Pump Discharging Water Through a Long Line of Pipe on the Ranch of Henry Yeager in 

 the Foothills West of Loveland, Colo. This cut illustrates the method of piping the water from the pump to a high point on the land to be 

 irrigated. 



rock is generally decayed so that it is porous and forms 

 a fine sponge. 



The results of filling these sponges thoroughly are 

 wonderful to the stranger. I have about thirteen cot- 

 tonwood trees lying along an old ditch that I cut off 

 some seven years ago. They get positively nothing 

 from the rainfall or any other ditch than the old dry 

 one they are on and nothing from underneath because 

 it is known to be over a hundred feet to water below. 

 Railroad excavations' show the soil perfectly dry from 

 the surface down as far as they have gone over ten 

 feet. These trees get water exactly once a year, when 

 for a week or two I turn waste water in winter into 

 that branch to save them. During the whole long dry 



raised on the same principle, one-half the ground being 

 plowed and left fallow each year to retain the moisture 

 in the subsoil. The grain is then planted early enough 

 to catch all the rains of the next winter. A paying crop 

 is quite a certainty if the weather is cool in filling time, 

 as it generally is here. 



Now all you need do is to follow these principles 

 of the Campbell system of dry farming and fill the 

 soil with water in winter and spring when there is 

 plenty in most all ditches that is not wanted very badly. 

 Plant nothing except on ground so filled; then hold 

 that moisture there bv cultivation, if your crop permits 

 it, and you will be surprised to see how long it will be 

 before there is any sign of suffering. If the air is moist, 



