54 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



DEVICES FOR SELF-LIFTING WATER SUPPLY. 



Where running water is at hand in ample supply and with 

 adequate velocity, the water can be made to lift itself to a distrib- 

 uting point, if not too high. The most capacious agencies belong 

 to a class of motors called current wheels. 



Current Wheels. A current wheel is an arrangement resem- 

 bling the paddle wheel of a steamboat, with a central shaft acting 

 as a hub for spoke-like arms which carry on their ends boxes or 

 buckets. The wheel is hung by the projecting ends of the shaft 

 so that the buckets are just covered under the surface of the 

 water. The current catches them and causes the wheel to revolve; 

 the rilled buckets are carried up as empty ones descend into the 

 water. The filled buckets are emptied as the turning of the wheel 

 inverts them,, and the water is caught in a box properly placed 

 and is then conducted by a flume to the point of discharge. Cur- 

 rent wheels are largely used for short lifts from streams or irriga- 

 tion ditches in which the water flows with sufficient velocity to 

 revolve them. The wheels are usually home-made and much 

 ingenuity can be employed in constructing them of available ma- 

 terials. 



Hydraulic Rams. The hydraulic ram is wasteful in that it 

 can deliver at a higher level but a fraction of the water furnished 

 it and it requires a definite fall for its action. Where conditions 

 are favorable it does become an effective agency because it acts 

 incessantly and, with suitable storage, considerable amounts of 

 water become available for irrigation. Manufacturers of hydraulic 

 rams furnish full accounts of their requirements and achievements. 



A suggestive combination of current wheel and hydraulic 

 ram, in operation in this state, is described as follows: 



A. P. Osborn's residence and the best part of his land are located on high 

 grounds on the bank of Tule river. To get water on this land without 

 going several miles up the river and bringing out a ditch, Mr. Osborn placed 

 in the river a wheel twenty-five feet in diameter and five feet wide. Sur- 

 rounding this wheel on either side are forty boxes, each holding four gallons 

 of water, making in all eighty boxes, with an entire lifting capacity of three 

 hundred and twenty gallons at each revolution of the wheel, which is turned 

 by the current of the river. As the boxes reach an elevation of twenty-two 

 feet, the water in them is emptied into a flume, which conducts it onward 

 into an irrigation ditch. This elevating the water twenty-two feet is only 

 sufficient to place it on the flat whereon is done the farming, and will not 

 take it to the knoll on which stands the residence. This is accomplished by 



