No. 4.] IRRIGATION ON OUR FARM. 141 



Ikrigation on Ouk Farm. 



BY RICHAKD IlITTINGEK, BELMONT. 



About sixteen years ago we began to irrigate our farm to 

 a small extent. We first drilled an artesian well on the 

 highest part of our land to the depth of one hundred and 

 thirty-five feet. This well, six inches in diameter, yielded 

 ten gallons per minute, by means of a windmill, which in 

 windy weather pumped from two to five thousand gallons 

 in twenty-four hours. Close by the Avell is a reservoir of 

 brick, thirty feet in diameter, ten feet deep, and with a 

 capacity of fifty thousand gallons. 



Four years later we put up several greenhouses. Our 

 water supply, however, was not sufficient for the green- 

 houses and other uses about the farm, inasmuch as the town 

 of Belmont had at that time no public water supply. We 

 therefore thought it advisable to drill another well near the 

 greenhouses themselves. This was bored to a depth of two 

 hundred and fifty-five feet. The diameter was eight inches 

 to one hundred and fifty-five feet below the surface, and six 

 inches the rest of the way. The Avell yielded fifty gallons 

 per minute, and when attached to a Dean deep well steam 

 pump the water was forced to the reservoir, sixty feet 

 higher than the top of the well. In this way the reservoir 

 was filled in about twenty hours. 



After getting the supply, we undertook more extensive 

 irrigation in the form of lawn sprinklers. At first we used 

 them successfully over a hot-bed of cucumbers of four hun- 

 dred sashes. The sprinklers were divided into four sec- 

 tions, with eight sprinklers to a section. The whole system 

 was fed b}^ a two and a half inch pipe. The four sectional 

 pipes of one and one-fourth inches branched from the main 

 pipe at a distance of forty feet from each other. The 



