THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



POWER IRRIGATION 



BY E. C. REYBOLD, JR. 



The demand for irrigated lands has become so great 

 during the past few years that more attention is being de- 

 voted to the use of power to pump water upon lands that 

 could not otherwise be irrigated. For centuries irrigation 

 ditches have been taken out of rivers and streams in order 



land is not always so placed that water can be brought to 

 it by means of a gravity ditch, as the land must always lie 

 at a lower level than the source of the water to be so 

 served. It is here that power irrigation finds it field, and 

 during the last few years many plants have been installed 

 to lift water from a ditch stream or lake to land lying 

 above it, or to pump to the surface the underflow or so- 

 called "sheet water" that underlies large tracts of land 

 frequently but a few feet below the surface. For many 

 years the underflow has been pumped in California with 

 eminent success, some wells being as deep as 200 feet, and 



The Discharge of Two of the Five Pumps at the Palisade Irrigation District, Capacity of Each 10,000 Gallons Per Minute. 



to cover land that would not grow crops without addi- 

 tional water, and thousands of acres have been thus 

 brought to a high state of cultivation in all parts of the 

 world. The ruins of the aquaducts of the Romans and the 

 ditches of the Incas of Peru, now filled with earth since 

 their destruction by the Spanish three centuries ago, at- 

 test to the age of such works. As time went on it was 

 found that in certain seasons there would be insufficient 

 water for all of the lands under such ditches, and reser- 

 voirs were constructed to conserve the heavy flow of water 



in Colorado and adjoining states similar work is making 

 great progress. At Garden City, Kansas, the Reclamation 

 Service has in operation a very large plant, pumping to the 

 surface sheet water lying about 25 to 30 feet below, and 

 (he United States Sugar & Land Company is now installing 

 a similar plant at the same place. The Reclamation 

 Service plant supplies water to 10,656 acres, while the 

 present plant of the sugar company is for about one-half 

 as much, their plans calling for installing pumps for about 

 5,000 acres additional for the season of 1910. Both plants 



Four-stroke Cycle Single Acting Buckeye Gas Pumping Engine. 



that ran to waste during flood periods of the -spring and 

 summer, at which time the ditches would not carry all of 

 it; and also to store the water that hitherto was permitted 

 to run to waste during the fall and winter months when 

 the irrigating ditches were closed. The water thus stored 

 has served to add a tremendous acreage to that which 

 could be irrigated by gravity ditches, and the development 

 of reservoir propositions is going ahead rapidly in all 

 parts of the country. 



But a third step in irrigation was necessary in order 

 to supply the increased demand for irrigated lands. Good 



Four-stroke Cycle Double Acting Buckeye Gas Pumping Engine. 



operate upon similar lines, using a number of centrifugal 

 pumps, each of which draws water from several cased 

 wells sunk to tap the underflow. Each pump is operated 

 by a motor, and as the pumps are quite a distance apart, 

 a centrally located power plant is used to generate elec-. 

 tricity for all. The Reclamation Service uses steam tur- 

 bines to drive their generators, while the sugar company 

 is installing producer gas engines, crude oil to be used in 

 the producers. The total cost of the Reclamation Service 

 project was $355,000, or a little less than $35 per acre, 

 which is to be repaid to the United States in ten equal 



