368 



THE IBEIGATION AGE. 



during the periods when there is an abundant supply 

 that is, to lay aside in reservoirs enough to meet any 

 possible contingency of drought or insufficient supply 

 when most needed. The standard of measurement of 

 water stored in reservoirs, the unit of quantity, is 

 designated as "an acre-foot"; that is, an amount of 

 water which will cover one acre of ground, or 43,560 

 square feet to a depth of one foot. This will give, of 

 course, 43,560 cubic feet, or 325,851 gallons. One 

 cubic foot per second flowing constantly for twenty-four 

 hours equals nearly two acre-feet, and from this it is 

 not difficult to convert cubic feet into acre-feet and 

 estimate the quantity of water to be stored in reservoirs 

 for the use and requirements of crops. The reservoirs 

 themselves may also be measured in the same manner 

 as a tank, but allowance must be made for evaporation 

 and absorption. 



To further explain the technical units of measure- 

 ments into quantities, the following table is given : 



One second-foot equals 450 gallons per minute. 



One cubic foot equals seventy-five 'gallons per 

 minute. 



One second-foot equals two acre-feet in twenty-four 

 hours flowing constantly. 



One- hundred California inches equal four acre-feet 

 in twenty-four hours. 



One hundred Colorado inches equal five and one- 

 sixth acre-feet in twenty-fcrar hours. 



One Colorado inch equals 17,000 gallons in twenty- 

 four hours. 



One second-foot equals fifty-nine and one-half acre- 

 feet in thirty days. 



Two acre-feet equal one second-foot per day, or 

 .0333 second-feet in thirty days. 



One million gallons equal 3.069 acre-feet. 



Taking water from streams and ditches open to the 

 atmosphere and its changes, rapid evaporation, seepage 

 and absorption, is always attended with an enormous 

 waste, the consequence being that the farmer never 

 knows and no man can tell him whether he is giving 

 his crops the quantity of water they absolutely require. 

 He can not tell how much of the water applied to the 

 soil is utilized by the crops, or is carried off by drain- 

 .igf. seepage, infiltration to some portion of the land 

 where it is not needed and generally lost for useful 

 purposes. He knows, however, that so much water is 

 measiired out to him and that he pays for the amount 

 that runs through the head gate, whether it is of any 

 practical use to him or not. The returns from his crops 

 i!n not represent as much as he hoped, for the expense 

 takes away a very large slice of his profits. His water 

 tax may represent one-third of his receipts, and though 

 he may be well aware that he never received the water 

 he pays for that is, it never was utilized by his crops 

 there is no way out of his embarrassment, he must pay 

 or quit. His farm belongs to him that is, he h.is the 

 ili eel to it but he is paying rent on it all the time. 



But a-long comes the farmer who irrigates his land 

 by means of a pump, worked by a windmill, horse- 

 ]io\v.r, steam, gasoline, or electricity. This man says: 

 "It costs me thirty cents per acre to irrigate my crops. 

 I know just exactly how much water my plants need 

 and I can measure it out to them as exactly as if I used 

 a gallon measure." Then the big ditch man goes over 

 to look at his neighbor's farm. "Why," he says, with 

 a loud laugh, "you have only one hundred acres of land 

 nnd I have five hundred." The other answers: "Yen- 



true, but I raise as much on my hundred acres as you do 

 your five hundred, or nearly so, and with one-fifth the 

 amonnt of labor and at a small fraction of the cost." 

 "How do you make that out ?" queries the other. "By 

 making every drop of water do its work. I get out of 

 it all the duty there is in it. I do not feed drainage, 

 seepage, evaporation, and my water does not wander 

 aimlessly all over the landscape. I am not in the' busi- 

 ness for the love of seeing water flowing over my land 

 back into the ditches and wells of my neighbors, or into 

 the subsoil to kill the roots; I am in it to make money, 

 and I am making money by saving water, and I pay 

 dividends into my own pocket, not into the pockets of 

 some one else, who charges me for water I do not get. 

 This is the era of small farms, and irrigation from 

 wells." How the well man can make this pay will be 

 described more in detail in the chapter on "Pumps." 



ROOSEVELT ON IRRIGATION. 



Writes a Letter to the State Congress in North Dakota. 



MANDAN, N. D., Sept. 27. Prominent citizens 

 from all parts of the northwest are here attending the 

 second state irrigation congress, which was called to 

 order by President B. A. Williams in the Mandan opera 

 house this afternoon. 



After President Williams called the meeting to 

 order Senator Hansbrough told of the benefits to be 

 derived from irrigation. 



At the close of Senator Hansbrough's address Pres- 

 ident Williams read a letter from President Roosevelt 

 regretting his inability to be present. The letter is 

 as follows : 



"OYSTER BAT, N. Y., Sept. 19. My Dear Mr. 

 Williams : I am in receipt of your letter of the 15th 

 inst., inviting me to be present at the Xorth Dakota 

 State Irrigation Congress on the 27th inst., and I 

 wish it were possible for me to be present, but I .re- 

 gret- to say it is not. During the time of my presi- 

 dency there has been no measure in which I have taken 

 a keener interest than that which started the policy 

 of national aid to the cause of irrigation. 



"I have felt that the use of the rivers and smaller 

 streams of the States of the great plains and Rocky 

 Mountains for irrigation was even more important to 

 the future of this country than the improvement of 

 the course of thesr- same rivers, lower down, as an aid 

 to navigation ; and when I became president one of 

 the first things to which I turned my attention was 

 the effort to secure the passage of the law which in- 

 augurated this system. 



"I congratulate the people of North Dakota in- 

 deed. I congratulate the people of all the United States 

 upon the fact that this work has begun. It will be 

 of incalculable benefit to the people of the semi arid 

 regions and therefore to the people of the whole coun- 

 try, for in this country whatever benefits part of it 

 benefits all. 



"With best wishes, believe me. sincerely yours, 

 "THEODORE ROOSEVELT." 



Send $2.00 for The Irrigation Age 

 1 year, and The Primer of Irrigation 



