THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



43 



PUMPING FOR IRRIGATION.* 



BY JOHN J. VERNON AND FRANCIS E. LESTER. 



Nrai Mexico i ollegt of Agriculture 



INTRODUCTION. 



Without water nothing will grow. It is as much a 

 necessity to vegetable life as air or light. Moreover, to 

 secure the best results vegetation requires water at 

 certain intervals. Nature sometimes fails to provide 

 this supply when most required, and the work of man 

 steps in with the practice of irrigation. Herein lie 

 the advantages which irrigated regions possess over 

 those which rely solely upon the rainfall. 



New Mexico is blessed with a genial climate and, 

 for the most part, with a fertile soil. The conditions 

 existing in her valleys and on many of her plains are, 

 except for the matter of rainfall, exceedingly favorable 

 to agricultural pursuits. Farming Operations may here 

 be carried on the whole year through. But the amount 

 of rainfall in the territory is light, averaging in differ- 

 ent localities not more than eight to sixteen inches in 

 the year. This being the case, it is evident that the 



PUMPING FOR IRRIGATION 7 FROM WELLS. 



solution of the problem of successful agricultural work 

 in New Mexico is a sufficient quantity of water for irri- 

 gation. It was with a view to demonstrate the practi- 

 cability of providing such a supply of water from the 

 underflow that the experimental work described in this 

 bulletin was undertaken.- 



The funds available for the prosecution of the in- 

 vestigation conducted were limited, but enough has been 

 done to emphasize its importance to the development of 

 the agricultural interests of our territory. 



DEVELOPMENT OF PUMPING PLANTS. ' . 



Irrigation by pumping, no doubt, grew out of 

 gravity systems. From irrigation by gravity it was only- 

 a step to that of pumping from river channels and 

 canals to high-lying contiguous areas. In natural se- 

 quence, pumping would follow upon lands lying slightly 

 above gravity systems or upon areas having no water 

 supply other than that of the imderflow. 



Irrigation by pumping dates far back in history. 

 "We are told that 'the numerous remains of huge tanks, 

 dams, canals, aqueducts, pipes and pumps in Egypt, 

 Assyria, Mesopotamia, India, Ceylon, Phoenicia, and 



* Fmm Bulletin No. 45 Issued by New Mexico College of Agriculture 

 and Mechanic Arts, Mesilla Park, N. M. 



Italy, prove that the ancients had a far more perfect 

 knowledge of hydraulic science than most people are 

 inclined to credit them with.' ' : 



At the present time much greater areas are irri- 

 gated by pumping from wells than is generally sup- 

 posed. King, in writing on this subject says : "It is 

 further estimated for the whole Indian Peninsula, 

 British and native, that no less than 300,000 shallow 

 wells are in use, while they serve certainly more than 

 6,000,000 acres of land." Large areas are being suc- 

 cessfully irrigated by pumping from wells in the vari- 

 ous sections of the United States, notably, parts of the 

 great rice region of the South; considerable areas of 

 fruit lands in California; and certain alfalfa and fruit 

 sections in Colorado, and elsewhere. 



GENERAL IMPORTANCE AND LOCAL CONDITIONS. 



Few parts of New Mexico are favored with an 

 abundant supply of water for irrigation purposes. To 

 one familiar with the agricultural conditions of the 

 territory, it is hardly necessary to emphasize the im- 

 portance of such a supply. In an irrigated region it 

 may mean all the difference between heavy loss or large 

 profit in the management of a farm. 



Throughout the whole length of the Rio Grande 

 Valley in New Mexico, which includes a large part of 

 the lands of the territory at present devoted to agri- 

 culture, there has seldom been in the past ten years or 

 more, a sufficient quantity of water in the river 

 throughout the irrigation season to meet the demands 

 of the lands at present in cultivation. With the in- 

 crease of the area in cultivated lands, the conditions 

 grow worse instead of better. Enterprises that have 

 sought to make the existing supply available for a 

 greater length of time by means of storage reservoirs 

 have been contemplated but never successfully com- 

 pleted. As a result, the average New Mexico farmer in 

 the Rio Grande Valley has been impressed with the 

 necessity of turning his attention to means of supple- 

 menting the available water supply. The question of 

 pumping for irrigation is therefore of great importance, 

 in the first place, to such farmers. In the second place, 

 it affects the question of reclaiming immense areas 'of 

 fertile lands suited to agriculture that exist in New 

 Mexico, and that lack only a water supply to bring them 

 into cultivation. As a means of providing such a water 

 supply the question of pumping for irrigation is at- 

 tractive for two reasons. If it can be shown to be suc- 

 cessful at all, it provides a supply that is reliable and 

 secure, subject to no fluctuation beyond possible break- 

 age of machinery, and making it possible to put the 

 water on the land at the exact time required. Secondly, 

 it places the farmer in an independent position, making 

 him independent of water companies or ditch corpora- 

 tions with their sometimes annoying regulations. 



LOCAL CONDITIONS. 



The conditions existing in the Mesilla Valley, where 

 the experiment station is located, are probably fairly 

 typical of those to be found throughout the greater part 

 of the valley of the Rio Grande. Largely as a result 

 of shortage of water in recent years, the farmers of the 

 Mesilla Valley have turned their attention to the culti- 

 vation of those crops that can not be seriously injured 

 by an uncertain water supply. Chief among these crops, 

 is alfalfa, and in the Rio Grande Valley, at least, the 

 cultivation of orchards, vineyards, corn and vegetables 

 on lands relying entirely upon river water for irriga- 

 tion has received much less attention in recent vears 



