FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



July 





Courtesy U. S. Geological Survey. 



JUMBO HOME-MADE WINDMILL, TYPICAL OF THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA PLAINS, WHERE 



PREVAILING WINDS ARE FROM ONE DIRECTION. VIEW NEAR LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, 



SHOWING PART OF RESERVOIR IN FOREGROUND. 



without pumping, the head of water 

 being 20 feet above the surface. The 

 land was cleared of its mesquite timber 

 in 1900, and was ready for crops in the 

 early spring of 1901. Garden truck 

 was grown, and the return on the in- 

 vestment was 14 per cent for the first 

 year. The rent charged was $22.75 P er 

 acre, which, after deducting $2.75 land 

 tax, made a net return of $20. One 

 tenant sold his crop of Irish potatoes at 

 the rate of $250 per acre, and in the fall 

 planted the same ground with sweet 

 potatoes, which netted $275, making an 

 annual income of $525 per acre for the 

 area in potatoes. A German tenant, 

 from the proceeds of one year's work, 

 paid all expenses of a family of five, 

 including stock feed for the entire year, 

 and at the end of the time had $3,600 in 

 bank. 



Mr. Collins has purchased an adjoin- 

 ing tract, where he will put the same 

 methods in operation, and has built 

 another reservoir, with a capacity of 

 1 2,000,000 gallons. Both of these have 

 been stocked with black bass, showing 



another use to which they may be put. 

 The example will be followed by other 

 land-owners in the neighborhood of San 

 Antonio, but the wonder is that more 

 people do not take up the matter. Here 

 conditions were simplified to the fullest 

 degree. Water was good and abundant, 

 and could be directed to land of mar- 

 velous fertility without any expense for 

 pumping plant. 



Kansas. In northwestern Kansas 

 and southern Nebraska the windmill 

 plays a more important part in regard 

 to the water supply than in other parts 

 of the country. Here most of the water 

 obtainable is found in underground 

 channels, and the supply seems practi- 

 cally limitless. Windmills of every pat- 

 tern are in use from the clumsy home- 

 made affair to the best of the steel type 

 which has been perfected to a high de- 

 gree of efficiency. Also the Kansas 

 wind, as is well known, sweeps over 

 the prairies with a steady and unremit- 

 ting force, affording the cheapest of 

 power. With the use of reservoirs 

 much of this windmill-raised water is 



