THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



119 



IRRIGATION BY PUMPING, RIO GRANDE VAL- 

 LEY, TEXAS. 



BY E. STONEY POKCHER, EL PASO, TEXAS. 



As you have so recently been to El Paso and taken 

 a trip down the Rio Grande valley, suppose you would 

 like to have some particulars of our situation as to water 

 facilities. This valley used to have all the water needed 

 on both sides, tradition says for two hundred years, but 

 for several reasons, among the most potent, the water 

 is being taken out each year more and more above us, so 

 that now we have lost faith in our ability to depend on 

 it, unless the United States government will agree to 

 join Mexico and put up what is called the International 

 dam. This 1 suppose you are posted on. We have been 

 experimenting for the" last four years with our under- 

 flow, and we now have twenty-three small pumping 

 plants below the city of El Paso, 5-, 10-, 28-horsepower 

 engines. While we have an unfailing supply of water, 

 we have but a shallow gravel bed ten to fifteen feet thick 

 and sixty feet down. The water rises to within ten, 

 twelve and fourteen feet of the surface. We can get 

 economically 600 to 800 gallons per minute from a 

 6-inch pipe with a twelve foot slotted strainer, which 

 is the only kind we have gotten any satisfaction from. 

 The slots are :i-10 to 14 inches wide, the steel being 

 perforated as full as the metal can stand. This lets 

 in all the sand and keeps out the gravel, thus giving 

 almost, if not quite, as good results as an open well and 

 at one tenth the cost. 



One drawback has been the high price of gasoline. 

 Eighteen cents per gallon is too much to pay for irrigat- 

 ing alfalfa or ordinary farm crops, but we have in sight 

 several crude oil converters that will convert crude oil 

 into gas. The gas engine is the only economical engine 

 to use in this arid region. To show what can be done 

 with a small 5-horsepower Columbus gas engine, I 

 will give you an experiment I have just finished making 

 on a four acre lot of alfalfa that you saw in front of 

 my dwelling. It contains about four acres of alfalfa. 

 The field the longest way is 550 long, divided in narrow 

 tables by borders about thirty-six feet wide. Two of 

 the tables are wider, One sixty-three feet. I have a 

 gasoline can that holds just one inch of gasoline for 

 each hours' run. In this test I measured the gasoline 

 every hour to see that the engine was drawing on it 

 uniformly. Then I placed a stake on the borders for 

 marking how far the water had got each hour. I after- 

 ward measured by a tape line their length. This was 

 some surprise for me. First I measured the water 

 pumped over a wier two feet wide placed according to 

 regulation. This gave me 240 gallon average. The 

 four acres should have taken 360,000 gallons of water 

 to cover it .three inches deep, but I actually pumped 

 700,000 gallons, nearly double the required estimate. 

 Again having a small flow I supposed the narrow table 

 would be covered more economically, but it wns not so 

 always for the average cost for the four acres was $1.03 

 of gasoline per acre, and this sixty-three foot table cost 

 at the rate of eighty cents per acre. This difference can 

 be accounted for only by the supposition that the land 

 sloped faster and was less porous. The longer the table 

 the more it costs, as you would expect. So with a small 

 flow of water the table should be made short and narrow 

 and cross ditches placed in. For instance, on one table 

 tlv first two hours' run covered 310 feet in length of 

 table, and the next two hours 245 feet of table, the 



width being the same. At our lower place my son 

 estimated that it cost seventy cents per acre on his al- 

 falfa on a field freshly plowed and sowed with alfalfa 

 seed, and three-quarters of a mile from, pump it cost 

 $1.25 per acre. This place has a 10-horsepowcr engine, 

 and No. 6 Johnson rotary pump. 



All that we lack now is cheaper fuel, and I believe 

 we will get this before the next pumping season, as I 

 know of five machines that are, or will soon be, on the 

 market for converting crude oil into gas for our engines. 

 Some promise as great a difference as fifty cents to $4.00> 

 cost for a day's run, the first being crude oil, the last 

 gasoline. If the gasoline was cheaper it would be un- 

 satisfactory, as the supply here is constantly running 

 out. We did not know what this land could do until 

 \ve got pumps. Any farmer knows that when our crops 

 need water they must have it for a maximum yield. 

 That part growing over the canal is not always available 

 as we have to take our turn, as in this very dry 

 climate when plants are set out in summer, if irrigated 

 at the time they will need water again in two or three 

 days. Our evaporation, as given by the hydraulic engi- 

 neer of the army, was eighty inches during the year. 

 The Arizona Experiment Station gives the amount of 

 water necessary for alfalfa as seventy-two inches. 



What would be an ideal thing for this valley would 

 be the sending of an electric wire through its lefigth 

 to supply power for the number of pumps required, 

 provided they will furnish power cheap enough. That 

 they could do so seems certain, if they use a recent in- 

 vention made by a California firm. To quote the words 

 of the president of an electric road : "The service has 

 been satisfactory, that they have never had a shut down, 

 and that the cost for crude oil at $1.13 per barrel has 

 been within 3-10 cent and 4-10 cent per kilowatt 

 power." We are far behind England and Germany 

 in the use of gas engines. One concern using the 

 Mond retort for making producer gas for power has 

 got a charter from parliament, and they are putting 

 up a plant that will deliver gas at four to six cents 

 per thousand feet, twenty-seven miles in all direc- 

 tions. The gas is made from the tailings at coal 

 mines. They can do this, for a part of Professor 

 Mond's invention is to save the nitrogen to such an 

 extent that they could pay over $2.00 per ton for the 

 coal, and the nitrogen or ammonia will more than 

 amount to this for each ton used. You will find a 

 full account of this in the August 15, 1903, No. 23,086 

 of Scientific American Supplement. 



We have all kinds of soil in this valley, and being 

 in the midst of a desert, a part grown city El Paso, 

 a mining and railroad center, we have a good market, 

 do not begin to supply it. A great deal of produce 

 that can be bought here is brought from California. 

 This will always be so to a certain extent in winter 

 and spring fruits and vegetables. 



We have a beautiful climate, cold at night in 

 winter, but few very cold days although we are 3,700 

 feet up. 



Some vast areas of land in the Milk River Valley. 

 Montana, have been withdrawn from entry and United 

 State? surveyors are surveying it preliminary to starting 

 irrigation work to reclaim it. No settler can get an 

 acre of this land without living upon it for five years. 

 but there is nothing to prevent the land grabbing com- 

 bination? from plastering their scrip all over it. 



