Irrigation by Wells Profitable 



No feature of western agriculture, except probably dry 

 farming, has had as hard a struggle for recognition and 

 commercial standing as that of irrigation from wells. 

 Ten years ago it was hooted at as a chimera and a play- 

 thing. Even today, scores of successful agriculturists 

 in the west contend that it is utterly impracticable and 

 unprofitable except in a few favored instances. Well 

 irrigation has more enthusiastic advocates and more bit- 

 ter critics than almost any measure affecting the pros- 

 perity of the west. 



About 15 years ago, J. L. Bristow, now a United States 

 senator from Kansas, sought to interest the farmers of 

 the central west in a movement for well irrigation. Start- 

 ing in the midst of a cycle of dry years, the movement 

 sprang into immediate favor and assumed considerable 

 proportions. "Pump the underflow!" was Mr. Bris- 

 tow's slogan. Subsequent wet years rather checked the 

 movement as a country-wide proposition, yet much of the 

 well irrigation in western Kansas and Nebraska and in 

 Colorado of today may be traced back to Bristow's plan 

 to redeem the entire west from the drought tyrant. 



Following this movement, the government, a few years 

 later, began experiments which resulted in the institu- 

 tion of a reclamation project at Garden City, Kan., the 

 source of water supply being the underflow of the Ar- 

 kansas River. This is now the most extensive well irri- 

 gation district in the United States. More than 250 wells 

 are drained by electric power generated at a central 

 power plant. The wells are in 28 groups, a pumping 



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