18 THE ^TEXAS RICE BOOK. 



per acre. Equally good lands, yes, even better lands, in many in- 

 stances 'beautiful smooth lands, with fine drainage, close to 

 railroad station, etc., can be bought at from $6 to $10 per acre, 

 because they cannot be reached by water from the canals or 

 bayous. They are worthless for rice growing unless water can be 

 had. What were we to do for water for these hundreds of acres 

 of lands, ideal in every other respect for rice growing? And again 

 the answer came from Louisiana, and the answer was 



IRRIGATION BY WELLS. 



At slightly varying depths at various places, 150 feet, 165 

 feet. 1 80 feet, 200 feet, or 206 feet deep, a thirty to forty foot 

 stratum of water-bearing sand was found. The water slightly 

 flowed over the surface at some wells, at others rose within two, 

 four, seven or nine feet of the surface. Six and eight-inch wells 

 were bored to this stratum were bored by rotating the 

 casing which had a thirty-foot wire wrapped strainer at the bot- 

 tom, and a bit, a little wider than the casing, at the bottom of the 

 strainer. A two-inch pipe down the middle of the casing, con- 

 nected with a steam pump, was made to throw a strong stream of 

 water at the bottom of the casing and washed and drove the 

 earthly core outside the pipe up to the top. When the strainer 

 was sunk thirty feet or more into the water-bearing sand stratum 

 the well was complete. Centrifugal or propeller pumps were ap- 

 plied to the wells, and driven by twelve to sixteen horse-power 

 engines, night and day for sixty to seventy days. Each well irri- 

 gated successfully from 150 to 250 acres of rice. This was done 

 last season (1899), the driest summer ever seen in the coast coun- 

 try. Only ninteen wells, that I know of, were bored and used for 

 irrigating rice last year. Not one of them was a failure. No 

 diminution in the water supply could be observed. Wells bored 

 fifty feet or more apart did not draw from one another. These 

 first wells were scattered all along the line of the Southern Pa- 

 cific Railway from Crowley to Lake Charles. In nearly every in- 

 stance the yield of rice grown "under" we'll water was greater 

 than that of the nearest fields watered from canal. The planter 

 found that, allowing 20 per cent of the cost of his plant well, 

 pump and engine 'for interest and sinking fund to replace it 

 after paying for oil, fuel, engineers, the cost of watering his 

 lands from the well was less than 40 per cent, of canal tolls. Be- 

 sides his experience happened to be in the driest of all dry sum- 

 mers, when he had no advantage of seasonable rainfall upon his 

 crop. Had it been a wet season, so that his rice had been flooded 

 from the clouds occasionally, he could have stopped his engine 

 during such periods, and saved fuel and labor. Canal tolls are 

 collected just the same, even if it rains enough to make a crop 

 without their supply. Again the man with the well feels more in- 

 dependent in many ways. He can use his portable pump-driving 



