364 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



The Art of Irrigation 



Tbe Results of Bad Flooding Cultivation, Etc. 



By T. S. VAN DYKB 



CHAPTER FIVE 



After you have let the water out of a check when 

 all is ready you may be grieved to see the bottom that 

 lately looked so smooth all full of depressions and 

 ridges. Such is quite certain to be the case if you have 

 plowed it deeply. Even without plowing it may be 

 caused by the honeycombing of the soil by gophers and 

 squirrels. And where desert soil has never been thor- 

 oughly wet for lack of rain it may settle some. But 

 when smoothed off again there will be no more trouble 

 of that sort and flooding will stop the gopher's fun. 



Finally you have everything in shape and a crop 

 comes up smiling. Suddenly it looks pale and weary 

 and you feel something like the sagging of your heart 

 toward your boots. Where are the wonders of irriga- 

 tion you have heard so much about ? Day after day goes 

 on with faint growths in spots, fainter yet in others, fair 

 in others, absolute standstill in others. It is not poverty 

 of the soil, cold weather, bad planting, or bad seed ; the 

 certainty of which makes more sinking of the spirits. 



Nothing alarming. Perhaps you put on water too 

 deep and packed the ground too hard. If you are under 

 a new ditch, with few consumers as yet, the water com- 

 pany will probably let you use all the water you please 

 without regard to the amount you have bought, and 

 will not hold you down to the limit until the number of 

 new consumers compels it. In such case you are quite 

 apt to think you are getting ahead of somebody and 

 hasten to take advantage of it. The number of places 

 that have at first been injured in this way, and good en- 

 terprises that have been more or less "hoodooed" by the 

 sorry muss the prospective buyer saw on every hand, 

 are quite incredible to one who has not traveled about 

 such places in their early settlement. One of the largest 

 and best enterprises in California had to be withdrawn 

 from the market for that reason. With the best of land 

 and surest of water rights the owners could not sell it 

 for half the cost of the water alone and have been farm- 

 ing tens of thousands of acres of it themselves ever 

 since. Another farther east and perhaps the largest in 

 the west was held up for years the same way. The 

 same thing has spoiled many a ranch where the owner 

 wanted to hold the right to all the water in a stream and 

 had to use it on his land in order to hold it, and is com- 

 mon in cases where one has a good water supply where 

 the delivery costs nothing; such as an artesian well 

 which generally costs nothing after the boring. 



But perhaps you did not do this, but only allowed 

 a small depth of water to stand too long. Perhaps you 

 did neither and the trouble is only a natural result of 

 any irrigation that covers the whole ground with a 

 sheet of water long enough to wet it properly. The fol- 

 lowing rules will help you, but remember they are only 

 general and subject to many exceptions dependent upon 

 soil, climate and the peculiarities of the vegetation. 



First. Nearly everything- is more or less injured 

 by flooding when very young. And some things may be 



locked up by the layer and fine mud thus formed, so 

 that much of the seed is lost. 



Second. The deeper the water and the longer it 

 stands the worse it is, especially if the water be muddy. 



Third. The hotter the weather, the higher the sun, 

 and the sooner it strikes the ground after the water is 

 off the worse it is. 



Fourth. In a time of high winds, drying down 

 after flooding may injure much more than in still 

 weather. , 



Fifth. Nearly everything endures flooding better 

 as it grows older, but many things never do as well 

 under it as under the furrow system with good cultiva- 

 tion where the water is never allowed to come within 

 two or three feet of the plant. The best illustration of 

 this is the orange and lemon, but it is much the same 

 with other trees and with many garden vegetables. 



Sixth. Some things become so tough that they 'do 

 about as well under flooding as they would under a rain- 

 fall of equal amount, such as alfalfa two years old on 

 loose open soil. 



Seventh., The injury from flooding is much less in 

 damp air than in dry air, such as is found on the des- 

 erts, but in cold weather the injury is not so great. 



The only remedy the tyro knows is to pour on 

 more water as soon as the top of the ground begins to 

 look dry. And the more you pour it on the more things 

 may not improve, especially if the soil is fine and tight 

 and the weather hot and windy. You are sealing out 

 the air which the roots must have for good work. It 

 is not so easy to say why standing water injures almost 

 anything more or less by simply touching the stalk, but 

 there is little room to doubt the fact. 



The true remedy, if you must flood, is to hav6 the 

 ground so wet and so thoroughly cultivated at the Ane 

 of planting that the seed will come up and grow a mag 

 time without needing more .water. By that time it may 

 endure it. In midsummer this would be difficult to do 

 with many crops, but in early spring if the wind is 

 not too great it is quite easy. In autumn, where it is 

 not too cold, such treatment is almost a certainty for 

 grain, turnips, potatoes, peas, and all stuff that grows 

 best in cool weather, as well as for new alfalfa, though 

 alfalfa makes its best yield in the heat of summer. It 

 is hard ta make a novice believe that ground thoroughly 

 wet and loosened up by good cultivation will ca'rry a 

 crop for many weeks without more water, but in some 

 sections where grain cannot be raised at all without 

 irrigation immense crops are carried in this way to very 

 near the point of heading. This needs a rich soil and 

 perfect weather conditions, but even on poor soil with 

 weather most too warm it can be carried *to six or eight 

 inches high, after which on many soils flooding will 

 hurt it very little. And even where it does injure it 

 some the damage is generally overbalanced by the 

 greater thickness of the stand that can be matured by 

 control of the water. The straw may not be so great, 

 but the yield of grain will be increased. It is the same 

 where it is cut for hay in the dry regions. If the size 

 of the stalk is reduced the quality is improved so that 

 stock eat it clean instead of leaving half the stalk. 

 The same principle applies to many other things. One 

 of the advantages of irrigation is the greater stand of 

 vegetation that can be crowded on an acre. If the soil 

 is rich enough considerable increase of the yield is cer- 

 tain. 



