THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



45 



and a foot deep did not leach out enough boiled down 

 to make a spot on a black stove griddle. That same 

 ground afterward killed everything planted in it. It 

 was just like being fooled in getting samples out of a 

 gold mine. 



Just about one year after the plants came up some 

 of them began gradually to turn green in the yellow 

 patch. In the other patch none had turned yellow and 

 few of them had stood absolutely still like the nine 

 acres of yellow ones had. But the growth had amounted 

 to nothing of value. All tracts had been diligently 

 watered in all sorts of ways, some with flooding by 

 standing water, some by flooding with thin sheets of 

 running water in lands as they are called and some 

 by small furrows. All sorts of quantities and varia- 

 tions in the periods of irrigating were tried with no 

 difference in the results. On the nine acres of yellow 

 stuff not a sign of alkali could be brought to the surface 

 by any amount of water or any method of applying it. 

 On ten other acres a trifle showed in a very few spots 

 but none at all where the plants turned bluish and 

 wilted a few days after having plenty of water. On 

 about ten acres of swale having a tight, fine soil the 

 ground turned nearly black in many places, killed seed 

 in the ground and killed the plants after coming up. 

 But it took nearly a year of heavy irrigation to make it 

 show, while it would kill quickly enough without 

 showing. 



It was plain enough that it was alkali everywhere 

 and that most of the soil was so coarse in texture that 

 capillary attraction could not bring it clear to the 

 surface against the constant heat of the sun and the 

 extreme dryness of the air. The vapor became so fine 

 that it dropped the salts an inch or two below the sur- 

 fact. This has since been plain enough on ground 

 where alkali can readily be made to show in winter 

 when the sun is lowest and the air cold, especially if 

 the air is made damp by a storm. On the same ground 

 it is impossible to make any show in summer. 



This alkali comes from the rainfall being so light 

 that it has never been able to wash out the potash, soda, 

 and salt formed by the decomposition of the rocks 

 forming the soil. During a wet spell one winter a 

 railroad cut showed plenty of it nearly ten feet below 

 surface. 



The under drainage being perfect, leaching was an 

 easy matter, but owing to bad laying out I could not 

 get the water on deep enough. So some of it took a 

 year and some two years; while some spots a trifle too 

 high are not leached yet. I found putting it under 

 a pressure of ten inches for four days and nights would 

 discharge it completely. I have five acres of melon and 

 garden land leached that way with deep basins four 

 years ago and not a sign of the return of alkali has yet 

 appeared. I am putting out all new ground in basins 

 of one-third of an acre each, and perfect levels on the 

 bottom. It amounts to terracing three inches in a 

 hundred feet. The levees are about twelve feet on the 

 bottom and fifteen to eighteen inches high so that all 

 machinery can run right over them, yet the alfalfa 

 grow all over them. This is expensive but I now leach 

 the whole piece while the seed is sprouting, and from 

 now on it will take half the water and half the work 

 the other land takes and give a much more uniform 

 stand. 



Now if the reader will remember what I said about 

 having nothing to sell I will tell something that sounds 



pretty large. From the leached portions of that ground 

 I have for two years taken twelve tons of hay a year 

 per acre, worth thirteen dollars in carload lots and 

 costing for all labor about three dollars including the 

 baling which we do ourselves direct from the field. 

 I get winter pasture equal to two tons more with con- 

 siderable waste at cutting which could be cleaned up 

 by stock with no injury to the ground because it is 

 so hard. I have taken four solid tons from six forty- 

 ninths of an acre at one cutting. And if I had three 

 weeks more of the extreme heat, as they have on the 

 Colorado Desert, I could cut sixteen tons of hay and 

 have the pasture besides. 



I have not yet told all, but enough to show what 

 might betide a man direct from the east with only a 

 little money. Mr. Fortier is exactly right. The first 

 settlers in a new region should be under some sort of 

 guardianship. They should be almost compelled to put 

 their money first into proper laying out of the land, 

 including proper drainage ditches and let fine houses, 

 flowers, fruit trees and all fancy or slow stuff go until 

 later. They should form clubs and buy the best ma- 

 chinery for land grading and ditching, and especially 

 for throwing levees over which mowers and hay rakes 

 can run with ease. Every one should lay aside prejudice 

 against "book farming" and read every book there is 

 on irrigation. The occupants of every hundred acres 

 or so should own a level in common, a good one too, 

 and have some of their number learn to use it. Any 

 boy or girl that can add and subtract can soon learn 

 to run it. And any old stiff with eyes good enough 

 to see the light thrpugh a telescope when the leveler is 

 not behind it can soon learn to place the rod within a 

 few inches of the right spot. Not a ditch of any kind 

 should be run without it no matter what the eye says. 

 And not a foot of land should be planted until graded 

 with it to the proper slope or level no matter how fine 

 an eye you have. A skilled irrigator should be over- 

 seer from the start, and the company instead of being 

 liberal with water because there are few to use it should 

 be very stingy, for experience has shown on many a 

 tract that the settler thinks he is getting something for 

 nothing and uses too much water. Thousands of acres 

 have been damaged that way in the great San Joaquin 

 Valley of California. These are but a few samples of 

 principles that should be applied to insure quick and 

 high success. At places like the land under the Roose- 

 velt dam in Salt River Valley the settler will be in the 

 midst of good examples. Biit time has shown that the 

 average settler will not travel far to learn anything but 

 will insist on working out his own experience just as if 

 no one had ever tried the problem. It won't take many 

 of that class under an isolated project to leave Uncle 

 Sam wondering when he is going to get back that money 

 that every one said was so sure after the water once 

 reached the ground. 



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