246 IRRIGATION FARMING. 



water running through the manure and carrying the 

 fertilizing material into a large pond at the lower side 

 of the yard. The pond thus serves as a reservoir for 

 the water, which has gathered the best elements of 

 the manure it passed through in flowing to the pond. 

 At the farther side of the pond a plug of wood four to 

 six inches thick and four feet long is inserted in a pipe 

 under the water, the pipe extending four to six feet 

 into a small watercourse in an adjoining pasture. 

 This watercourse has only a little descent, sufficient to 

 let water flow along it. After heavy showers the 

 plug is drawn, and the water and manure it contains 

 let through the pipe into the pasture, where it is ap- 

 plied both in irrigating and fertilizing. The result is 

 a very large crop of grass. 



There is no crop grown in the Rocky Mountain 

 region in which the use of water becomes an abuse as 

 in tlie irrigation of hay meadows or vegas. The ex- 

 travagant application of water in such irrigation has 

 become an evil, the extent of which has become almost 

 proverbial. Over a large part of the country where 

 meadows are irrigated for the produdlion of hay, it is 

 the common practice to turn the water on the land 

 just as early in spring as it can be run through the 

 ditches, ordinarily about the middle of April, and it 

 runs continuously until about the middle of July, 

 being turned off only long enough before mowing to 

 allow the land to dry out, so the water will not inter- 

 fere with the work of haymaking. This time varies 

 in different places from one day to two weeks before 

 mowing begins. Some farmers turn the water off the 

 meadows the day before they begin to cut the grass, 



