366 



THE 1KK1QATION AGE. 



the result of mismanagement or ignorance in erection 

 and running. To remedy this under such fa-vorable 

 circumstances as exist along the banks of the Eio 

 Grande, we would suggest that instead of each farmer 

 purchasing a separate engine, let a co-operative com- 

 pany be formed to erect and install an electric power 

 plant that would do all the pumping required for 

 four or five miles above and below the power house, 

 the farmer merely having to sink his wells, attach his 

 pumps and touch the button when the power is re- 

 quired to start irrigating. All anxiety and annoy- 

 ance of constantly sending to town for a machinist, 

 gasoline and hire of an extra hand to attend an en- 

 gine will be avoided and it will be found that irriga- 

 tion will not cost one-half what it is now costing. 

 Say a power plant was erected at Isleta and Mesilla 

 Park from which all irrigation pumps within a radius 

 of five or six miles can be run for five or six months 

 in the year and if a contract were obtained to light 

 one or two small towns at night and supply power for 

 mills of one kind or another for six months of the 

 year when irrigation is not on, it would be found 

 that the cost of irrigation would be merely nominal. 



THE PRIMER OF IRRIGATION. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1903, BY D. H. ANDERSON. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



(Measurement of Water.) 



If we fill a gallon measure with water we know 

 that we have 231 cubic inches of water which weighs 

 eight and one-third pounds. That is the United States 

 standard. We also know, because it is easy to measure 

 it, that a cubic foot of water weighs sixty-two and one- 

 ha-lf pounds and measures 1,728 cubic inches, equal to 

 seven and one-half gallons. 



When it comes to measure water for irrigation 

 purposes it is difficult to ascertain the exact quantity 

 measured, owing to arbitrary standards of what the 

 measure should be. Besides that, the various States 

 and countries are not agreed upon a universal stand- 

 ard of measurement, so that when one reads of fifty 

 inches being required to raise a crop, his measurement 

 may mean a much less number of inches if measured ac- 

 cording to some other standard. Ten thousand gallons 



Road Bridge Across Main Canal 14 miles from dam. Twin Falls Land and Water Co.'s Project, Twin Falls, Idaho. 



In every way, unless an international dam be built 

 near El Paso, El Paso must look for its water supply, 

 both for irrigation and domestic purposes, to pump- 

 ing; and we are convinced that the plant we advocate 

 above, which has already proved successful in other 

 parts of the world, would be of all importance to 

 the irrigation of all localities situated under such cir- 

 cumstances as the farmers of the Eio Grande Valley 

 for sixty to seventy miles above and below El Paso. 



A dispatch from Trinidad, Colo., under date of September 

 1st, has the following: 



Maps for the construction of an immense storage reservoir 

 to be built about twenty miles east of this city on the Purga- 

 toire River were filed in the office of the county clerk today 

 by Charles R. Hays, of Denver. The maps have already been 

 filed with State Engineer Carpenter in Denver and the 

 project will cost $400,000. 



A dam will be built at the upper end of Red Rock Canon 

 125 feet high and 337 feet long, and the reservoir will take 

 in portions of four townships. The water will be used in 

 irrigating a large area now arid between the dam and the 

 town of Las Animas. 



The Irrigation Age One Yea.r and The Primer 

 of Irrigation, $2.00 



of water by accurate measurement may be run into 

 a reservoir, and in twenty-four hours or less that num- 

 ber of gallons will be materially reduced, but the loss 

 can be accurately estimated, and so can the exact quan- 

 tity run out of it for any purpose be measured almost 

 to a drop. But in the case of taking water from a 

 running or flowing stream or ditch, various difficulties 

 stand in the way of accurate measurement. 



In measuring water from streams, ditches and run- 

 ning or flowing water, generally three standards, or 

 "units of measure" as they are called, have been agreed 

 upon. They are the inch, the cubic foot per second, 

 and the acre-foot. 



THE INCH. 



The "inch" as a unit of water measurement origi- 

 nated with the placer miners of the West and was 

 adopted by irrigators when water came to be used upon 

 the land for the growing of crops. It is the volume of 

 water which will flow through an inch-square open- 

 ing or orifice with a certain other volume of water over 

 and a-bove it to* give it what is known as "pressure." Both 

 the opening as to size and the depth of water above it 

 are regulated by the laws of some of the States, and in 



