382 



IRRIGATION FARMING. 



water, which g^ves them their power upon a different 

 place, they receiving this power from the pressure and 

 readlion of the water. A more primitive affair having 

 the same obje(5l in view is the common water-wheel 

 often seen in the west. Every one knows of the stem- 

 wheel steamboats that navigate shallow streams. These 

 afford an instance of the kind of 

 wheel to be used — simply a large 

 one with paddles or floats on the 

 end of the arms, by which the cur- 

 rent of the stream turns the wheel; 

 and by means of proper gearing 

 the motion is conveyed to a pump, 

 by which the water of the stream 

 may be raised through pipes to 

 reasonable hight and distance. A 

 stream nine feet deep and one 

 hundred feet wide flowing four 

 miles an hour will exert a very 

 great power. A common float or 

 paddle-wheel twenty feet in diam- 

 eter working in a stream of this 

 kind will make four revolutions in 

 a minute, which by cheap gearing 

 may operate a pump with sixty 

 strokes a minute, this being more 

 than ample to raise water sixty feet in sufficient quan- 

 tity to irrigate twenty to forty acres of land. The cost 

 of such a wheel would be quite small, not over $50. 

 The wheel should be submerged over eighteen inches 

 in the water, which will be the width of the floats. If 

 more power is desired, the floats may be increased in 



FIG. 89. 



THE HURDY-GURDY. 



