282 



lastly, the water may be carried across in a pipe laid in the form of 

 an inverted siphon. The earth levee is the cheapest, but it is sub- 

 ject to leaks and washouts for the first few years. The wooden flume 

 answers the purpose fairly well, but it is subject to early decay, and 

 the clay or cement pipe laid beneath the surface, although dearer in 

 first cost, is really the cheapest in the end. 



Preparation of the Land. The preparation of the land for irri- 

 gation should follow the building of supply ditches. While this 

 rule is frequently disregarded it will be found better to grade land 

 in conformity to permanent ditches already constructed than to 

 locate and excavate ditches to suit land that has been graded and 

 leveled. 



Importance of Surface Preparation. The new settler in an 

 irrigated district seldom appreciates the importance of preparing the 

 surfaces of fields so that they may be cheaply, easily, and properly 

 watered. Crops in an arid climate are as a rule good or bad, accord- 

 ing as they have received the proper amount of water at the right 

 time, and when the ground is left so rough and uneven that water 

 can not be evenly applied the effect is shown in the reduced yield. 

 The preparation of the land is a first cost, and if done thoroughly 

 during the first or second year little expense need be incurred after- 

 wards. The difference in cost between a smooth, well-graded field 

 and one which is poorly graded and rough may not exceed $5 per 

 acre, yet this sum is often lost in one season by diminished yields 

 due to imperfect watering, caused by a rough, uneven surface. Thor- 

 ough preparation of the surface applies with particular force to a 

 crop like alfalfa, which grows year after year from the roots, and 

 which is cut from three to six times each season. 



Clearing the Surface. Tracts which produce native grasses, 

 low cacti, rabbit brush, and the smaller forms of brush can be read- 

 ily plowed without first removing the larger plants. Such land 

 should be plowed deep, the larger growth afterwards removed and 

 the surface thoroughly harrowed, graded, and smoothed. In plow- 

 ing for the first time, 2 acres is a fair day's work for a man and three 

 horses, and the cost of removing the larger plants seldom exceeds 

 50 cents an acre. Tracts which produce tall, coarse sagebrush from 

 3 to 5 feet high, in clumps from 4 to 8 feet apart, with more or less 

 nutritious grasses growing in the open spaces, are more difficult to 

 put in shape for irrigation. 



The brush is first railed by dragging a 60-pound rail from 12 to 

 16 feet long across and back over the same strip in opposite direc- 

 tions by hitching a team of horses or mules to each end. Some- 

 times the rail is bolted to a heavy timber. Others use a chisel-sharp- 

 ened plowshare steel bolted to a 12 by 12 inch timber and dispense 

 with the rail. The loose brush is then gathered into windrows or 

 piles by a brush rake and burned. These rakes are made either of 

 wood with teeth of round oak or pine joists or of steel and resem- 

 bling a strong and heavy self-dumping hayrake. The brush which 

 is not torn out by the rail is grubbed out with a mattock. 



