THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



373 



UNDERGROUND WATERS FOR IRRIGATION. 



Successful Use of It in San Joaquin Valley for Purposes 



of Irrigation as Well as for Stock and 



Household Use. 



The raising of underground water for irrigation 

 purposes is receiving marked attention in the San 

 Joaquin Valley. As is the case in most parts of Colo- 

 rado, the water from the natural streams has already 

 been pretty well appropriated, by the irrigating canals: 

 yet there still remain immense areas of fertile soil that 

 are without water. The San Joaquin valley is fully 300 

 miles in length and 80 miles in width ; so it may readily 

 lie seen that it would be impossible to irrigate its entire 

 extent with the water derived from the surface streams. 



But beneath the entire length and breadth of the 

 valley there appears to bo one immense body of water, or 

 underground lake. This body of water can be reached 

 bv boring from 18 to 150 feet below the surface, and 

 when once reached the supply of water is inexhaustible. 

 This body of water may be drawn upon at will for house- 

 hold purposes, the watering of live stock, for irrigation, 

 or in fact for whatever use for which it may be needed. 

 As far as irrigation is concerned, it may be used to tide 

 over a shortage of ditch water incident to a drouth or 

 as an independent source of water supply. 



And it is gratifying to observe that the people of 

 the valley are waking up to the value of this great sub- 

 terranean water supply. The enormous productiveness 

 of the soil of the San Joaquin valley when once it can 

 lie watered sufficiently has been fully demonstrated. The 

 soil will also produce a great variety of crops, both 

 native to the temperate and semi-tropic zones. There- 

 fore, the question of irrigation once settled, the yield 

 of crops, both in quantity and variety, is but a question 

 of soil and crop management. 



In order that the conditions may be made plain to 

 the reader it may be stated briefly that the San Joaquin 

 valley is level and land locked, being bordered on the 

 east by the lofty Sierra Nevada range and on the west 

 by the coast range. At the southern extremity of the 

 valley these ranges join, while at the northern extremity 

 there is but a comparatively narrow opening outward 

 to the bay of San Francisco. In fact, it is a geological 

 theory that the valley was once the bed of an ancient 

 inland sea; and such in fact seems to have been tlv 

 case, judging from the nature of the soil, which appears 

 to be nothing less than sea sand, or a nice admixture of 

 sand and silt. This soil is very deep, sometimes reach- 

 ing a depth of 300 feet. This gives the soil inexhaust- 

 ible resources in the way of fertility and capacity for 

 cultivation. 



The surrounding mountain ranges appear not only 

 to furnish a water supply for the numerous streams 

 that pour down from their gulches, but to continuously 

 replenish the great underground lake underlying the 

 surface of the valley. The water supply of the Sierra 

 Hevadas is especially abundant, as the snowfall in their 

 higher altitudes is very heavy. It would seem, there- 

 fore, that the San Joaquin valley, taking both its sur- 

 face and its underground water supply together in addi- 

 tion to its regular rainfall, were well provided with 

 sources from which moisture could be derived. In the 

 southern part the rainfall is light, being only a little over 

 five inches per year on an average. The rainfall in- 

 creases as the northern extremity is approached. This 

 usually suffices to keep the great mountain and valley 

 ranges, where immense numbers of sheep, cattle and 



horses continually feed, in a green and growing condi- 

 tion. Then, with the combined surface and underground 

 supplies of irrigation water, the large and increasing 

 areas of citrous fruits, as well as common fruits and 

 common farm products, could be irrigated, as well as 

 immense fields of alfalfa for live stock and dairy uses. 



The pumping of irrigation water in the San Joa- 

 quiu valley is at present receiving a strong impulse. 

 The discovery of extensive oil fields iu Kern County is 

 tending to simplify the pumping problem. .Crude pe- 

 troleum may be obtained at Bakersfield as low as 20 

 cents per barrel; so that gasoline engines with crude oil 

 generators promise to play an important part in the new 

 movement. 



A good example of present day pumping plants in 

 the San Joaquin valley may be seen in that on the 

 ranch of Mr. A. L. Sayre at Maderia, Fresno County. 

 The ranch contains 804 acres. Four hundred acres are 

 down to alfalfa; 225 in vines, and the balance in grain. 

 Mr. Sayre originally installed his pumping plant to se- 

 cure a constant supply of good fresh water for his dairy 

 herd, numbering from 100 to 125 head of cows. But 

 the plant worked so well that he employs it for the 

 pumping of irrigation water, and he declares that bis 

 ranch produces annually three times as much as it 

 would if irrigated by ditch water alone. 



In installing his plant, Mr. Sayre dug a pit twenty- 

 five by seventy-five feet, and down to within two or 

 three feet of the underground body of water. In this 

 pit he sunk two wells and operates them with a ten- 

 inch centrifugal pump run by a sixty horsepower engine 

 standing on the bank of the pit. The engine is run 

 by gasoline with a crude oil generator. The oil used is 

 produced in the Coatinga fields, is of 32 degrees gravity, 

 jind costs about $5 per day. He has two engineers who 

 work in two shifts and keep the engine running night 

 and day. Thus it costs about $9 each twenty-four hours 

 to run the plant, and from eight to twenty acres of 

 ground can be thoroughly flooded in that time, accord- 

 ing to the character of the soil. 



Mr. Sayre says that the supply of water is evidently 

 inexhaustible. The strata from which the water is 

 raised lies about 110 feet below the surface of the earth 

 and the pump throws from 4,000 to 4.500 gallons per 

 minute. The two wells stand about twenty-two feet 

 apart. 



This plant is run throughout the year, and would 

 lie nmple to irrigate the entire ranch if need be. 



H. A. CRAFTS. 



WITH OUR ADVERTISERS. 



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