THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



347 



GARDEN CITY KANSAS 



VICINITY 



Promise of Record-Breaking Beet Crop Copious Rains 

 Make Irrigation Unnecessary Deerfield Pumping 

 Plant Completed Russian Thistles Exterminated 

 Alfalfa Crop Gives Great Promise. 



BY R. H. FAXON. 



A trip through the valley and a look on the south side 

 just now is most profitable and remunerative. It will give 

 an idea of the wonderful development in this Garden City 

 section, and of the hope that no season ever brought to this 

 country that compares with this. 



Conditions just now in the valley and south side are per- 

 fect. The splendid fields of splendid beets, the waving alfalfa, 

 lush, dank, luxurious, the many fields of wheat that are just 

 beginning to catch the brown that precedes the golden. 



In the neighborhood of 12,000 acres of beets makes the 

 prospect for this year's factory campaign simply tremendous. 

 There isn't a very good way for the layman to measure it, 

 except to say that all signs and indications point to passing 

 1906 with absolute ease ; and you know what that means. 



A ride through the entire valley, and up north to almost 

 the edge of the Shallow Water Empire, is an inspiring thing. 

 It develops the fact that while there have been many rains 

 and that each forms a crust over the ground, yet each suc- 

 ceeding one has moistened this, and the young beet has 

 pushed through and is doing well. It has been cultivated, 

 thinned, and weeded, already, in probably half the fields. In 

 others, just an occasional one here and there ; seeding has 

 been tried late, and is now going on; but this is only a small 

 percentage of the beet lands. The ditches are all running 

 nearly bankful, and the water is not needed in most places. 

 Reservoir No. 5 has more than 18 feet of water stored in it, 

 and the repair of a break in the Great Eastern will put this 

 number of feet of water much greater. 



Of course, the great thing to the United States Sugar 

 and Land Company is the completion and successful tests of 

 the new south side pumping plant at Deerfield, near here. 

 The fact that this work was pushed through in comparatively 

 a few months ; that it is an example of an imposing and sub- 

 stantial plant, sightly and attractive; the fact that not a test 

 hung fire so far, and the kind of plant it is, make the com- 

 pletion and readiness for operation of more than timely 

 moment. 4l 



The oil is introduced into the gas-producer, and air at 

 the same time. After a short time, the heat is sufficient to 

 create the gas, which is run off into cleaners, and the carbon, 

 or lampblack, removed by centrifugal operation. The gas is 

 then, partly by suction, partly by force, drawn by pipes to 

 the west end of the plant, where it is run into the twin tan- 

 dem 400-horsepower Buckeye engines. This produces the_ 

 power from which the necessary voltage to run the trans- 

 mission line and feed the pump-house is secured. 



The Buckeye engine was made at Salem, Ohio, and is a 

 clean, powerful-looking institution. It works perfectly with 

 the gas-producer and seems to bid fair to become entirely 

 successful. 



The machinery is started from a distillate motor, 40- 

 horsepower, made by the Western Gas Engine Company. 

 That is one of the cleanest-cut pieces of machinery that a 

 person ever saw. This motor starts all the machinery and 

 pumps in the whole establishment to work, and runs the gas 

 into the Buckeye engines, which then make the power. The 

 gas and water-pumping machinery are then carried by an 

 electric motor from the generator run by the big engine and 

 the 40-horsepower engine stopped. 



It is stated that with oil costing 85 cents per barrel, a 

 little above the cost here, the plant will run with a cost n^t 

 to exceed twenty-seven one hundredths, or a trifle over one- 

 quarter of one cent per each brake horse hour. 



Or. to put it in another way, running the plant with all 



the pumping station going and lifting 25,000 gallons of water 

 30 feet every minute, will require only one gallon of crude 

 oil, costing two cents. This includes the loss generating the 

 electricity, transmitting the long distance, transforming the 

 voltage from 6,600 to 440, and the motor losses. 



This amount of water would fill 600 barrels and make a 

 pile standing 20 barrels high and 30 long, all done with a 

 little one-gallon can of crude oil, costing two cents. 



The transmission line runs out south and west from 

 Deerfield, on the south side. There are fourteen pump- 

 houses, made of solid cement, with telephone connection. 

 There is one well close by the side of the pump-house and 

 four others at right angles, making five in all. The average 

 depth of the wells is 55 feet. The wells are 130 feet apart, 

 a different plan than that of grouping at the government 

 project. The 16-inch casing goes all the way down, instead 

 of tapering from 16-inch to 9-inch at the bottom, as at the 

 government project. Inside the pump house, the pumps are 

 set clear at the bottom of the cement pit, to the water, thus 

 saving suction. On test their wells pumped out 850 gallons 

 a minute, but only 350 gallons are required of each well, or 

 about one-third of test. The power into each pumphouse is 

 6,600 volts, which is transformed to 440. 



The southside looks good, though much land is newly- 

 broken. The' new plant serves 4,500 acres, in all, and the 

 sugar company has about one-third of this in beets and one- 

 third in alfalfa. An effort to make a full inspection of the 

 district was impossible on account of the condition of the 

 roads, through which no car could safely pass in places. 



A trip to reservoir No. 5, the largest body of water in 

 the state of Kansas, is always profitable. There is now 

 18 6-10 feet of water in the reservoir, about six feet having 

 been taken out this season. The present capacity of the 

 reservoir is 18,500 acre feet, and by work now going on, the 

 sugar company will enlarge this to 31,500 acre feet, and it 

 readily will respond to greatly increased capacity beyond that 

 figure. The banks will be extended at once to the northeast, 

 and 100,000 cubic yards of dirt used. One million feet of lum- 

 ber, Oregon fir, will be used in the construction of sheet pil- 

 ing for the dam's center, and 3,000 16-foot piles. The reser- 

 voir is a wonderful thing, and not the least of the sugar com- 

 pany's many possessions. 



The sugar company's labor is fast taking on cosmopolite 

 complexion. There are about 200 Mexicans, 350 Japanese, 

 and 250 Germans now at work, thinning and weeding and 

 otherwise doing the beetfield labor. The Mexicans live in 

 tents, which they themselves bring in ; but the Japanese and 

 Germans require better furnishings comfortable little houses, 

 etc. 



On section 17, 23-33, northwest of town, the company has 

 recently built five more little houses, making eight in all. 

 This is the Japanese colony in charge of K. S. Ase. Here 

 the company itself is raising 450 acres of beets, and the work 

 is satisfactory, and beet condition splendid. 



Here is an argument for intensive farming that the writer 

 cannot overlook: In the Michigan beetfields, the average farm 

 is three and one-half acres; and the man who has 15 acres 

 is considered foolish. The day of intensive farming and the 

 general practice of winter irrigation cannot be too strongly 

 impressed upon this section, and they mean its prosperity 

 beyond recountal. 



The government ditch is running bankful, with perhaps 

 150 feet head, and is being used by quite a good many, in spite 

 of recent rains. The other ditches are also running rather 

 full from the river's flood. 



The valley is, generally speaking, comparatively clean from 

 Russian thistles. It is the most hated thing in the beet-field, 

 and great care is taken with its extermination. All the beet- 

 men hope the board of commissioners and county attorney 

 will fully enforce the law against this pest. 



The little town of Deerfield, an industrial adjunct to 

 Garden City, is humming. There is not only a single vacant 

 house in town, but literally not a vacant room. The stores 

 are doing a fine business, due to the irrigation, reclamation, 

 and Sugar Company activity in this valley. 



The beet tonnage will be wonderful ; the alfalfa is a tre- 

 mendous quantity; the new pumping plant is a mighty factor; 

 the people are happy, and with intensive farming and winter 

 irrigation, the most inconceivable future awaits the Garden 

 City section. 



