THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



785 



Notes on Practical 

 Irrigation 



D. H. Anderson 



Laying Out of the Land Method of Planting. 



Generally speaking every farmer has' his land under 

 his eye and knows what to do with particular portions of 

 the ground. He will plant wheat in this field, barley over 

 (yonder, further along he expects to have a patch of rye. 



In the case of vegetables he follows the same practice 

 and plants his cabbages, his beets, turnips, etc., whereever 

 the fancy moves himi It is a haphazard manner of farming, 

 and to it may be atributed failures which have been ascribed 

 to the elements. From what has been heretofore said it must 

 be apparent that there is something in soil and in the manner 

 of planting which it would be well to heed ; indeed, which 

 must be heeded if success be desired and a crop assured. 

 True, plants 1 will grow if the seed be thrust in the ground ; 

 that is, after a fashion ; and so will an animal grow if kept 

 alive after a fashion, but the produce in both cases will be 

 scrub. 



Irrigation Age. Correspondent Meets with Mishap Swins 

 Ashore. 



The time is coming, if it has not already arrived, when 

 fanners will be able to produce as much from half an 

 acre of ground as from an acre, and better crops. Too 

 much land is as great a bar to success as too little, for 

 in the former case there is'too much trusting to luck, whereas 

 in utilizing nature for the purpose of wresting products 

 from the bosom of the earth there is not the smallest element 

 of luck; it it all pure science, knowledge, ability, etc. A man 

 with a trifling commercial business keeps an account of 

 stock, his books show just what he has on hand, his sales 

 and purchases. His inventory shows where his varieties of 

 goods are located on his shelves. But when it comes to a 

 farm, which is never a small business, no books are kept, 

 no account of stock taken, and the location of his crops are 

 retained in his mind's eye. More than that, quality is little 

 regarded, the varieties of soil are not considered, and plants 

 requiring one kind of soil are fed on a kind they do not 

 flourish in. This is the common rule. 



Take any tract of land, large or small, and when the 

 crop is growing there will always be spots where the plants 

 are thin, sparse and sickly. Failure of proper cultivation? 

 Not at all; nothing but failure to properly lay out the land 

 so as to know what it is suitable for. The pollen of a sickly 

 plant spreads as far as. that of a good healthy one, and poor 

 results are attributed to poor seed, etc., when a little care 

 and forethought might have made the crop uniform and the 

 results satisfactory. 



This is preparatory to the subject of laying out the land, 

 for upon doing that properly depends the success it is always 



desirable to attain in every species of farming for profit. 

 If profit be not the desideratum, then why go to the trouble 

 and labor of farming? 



The proper laying out of the land is always of great 

 importance, and where irrigation is practiced it is of the 

 highest importance. Water runs down hill and it also soaks 

 into the soil seeking the water table, and this water table is 

 always receiving additions, through the constant or periodical 

 application of irrigation water, and rises to do damage. 



Hence drainage is to be considered as well as the slope 

 of the land. The first thing to be done is to prepare an 

 outline of the land, its boundaries. If a square tract the mat- 

 ter will be easy, for any sized square may be laid down upon 

 paper and then measured off into acres or parts of acres 

 to suit the convenience. A map of one's land is a necessity 

 nowadays, and it is not difficult to prepare one. It is the farm- 

 er's diagram of the location of his stock, equivalent to the 

 shelves in a store of merchandise. It tells him the location 

 of his crops, the nature of the soil, his ditches, and all their 

 ramifications, and if anything goes wrong he can immediately 

 put his finger on the point of trouble and go at once to cor- 

 rect it. 



To prepare a map of the land measurements must be 

 taken, and these measurements are expressed in tables uni- 

 versally adapted and can therefore always be relied upon as 

 uniform. To begin with, an acre of land, whatever its shape, 

 contains nearly 43,560 square feet, and after an outline has 

 been traced upon paper, lines may be drawn from side to side 

 and these lines crossed by other lines drawn from top to 

 bottom. The map will then be covered with little squares 

 which may be any part of an inch in size, but representing 

 a given quantity of land; say one inch square on the paper 

 represents an acre of ground ; then if you have a farm of 

 100 acres your map will be ten inches square, if the land is 

 a square, but whatever the shape of the land it will contain 

 exactly 100 square inches. Not a very large map, but very 

 convenient, for on it may be expressed the exact location 

 of crops, even to a small cabbage patch, ditches, farm build- 

 ings, orchards, vines, etc., etc. Of course any scale to the 

 acre may be selected instead of one inch. If the farm is large 

 then make the scale one-half inch to the acre or even less, 

 or if small make the scale two inches or more, to allow of the 

 least details. 



If it is desirable to make an accurate estimate of the 

 amount of land in different fields under cultivation, the fol- 

 lowing table will be of assistance : 



lOx 16 rods equals 1 A. 70x69.5 yards equals 1 A. 



8x 20 rods equals 1 A. 220x198 feet equals 1 A. 

 5x 32 rods equals 1 A. 440x 99 feet equals 1 A. 

 4x 40 rods equals 1 A. 110x369 feet equals 1 A. 

 5x968 yards equals 1 A. 60x726 feet equals 1 A. 



10x484 yards equals 1 A. 120x363 feet equals 1 A. 

 20x242 yards equals 1 A. 240x181.5 feet equals 1 A. 

 40x121 yards equals 1 A. 200x108.9 feet equals 1 A. 

 80x60.5 yards equals 1 A. 100x145.2 feet equals 1 A 

 100x108.9 feet equals y 4 A. 

 25x100 feet equals .0574 A. 

 25x110 feet equals .0631 A. 

 25x120 feet equals .0688 A. 

 25x125 feet equals .0717 A. 

 25x150 feet equals .109 A. 

 2178 sq. feet equals .05 A. 

 4356 sq. feet equals .10 A. 

 6534 sq. feet equals .15 A. 

 S712 sq. feet equals .20 A. 

 10890 sq. feet equals .25 A. 

 13068 sq. feet equals .30 A. 

 15246 sq. feet equals .35 A. 

 17424 sq. feet equals .40 A. 

 19603 sq. feet equals .45 A. 

 21780 sq. feet equals .50 A. 

 32670 sq. feet equals .75 A. 

 34848 sq. feet equals .80 A. 



In measuring land there are three distinct operations to 

 be performed : Taking the dimensions of the tract ; delineat- 

 ing or laying down the same on a map, and calculating the 

 area or superficial contents. All the tables applicable to land 

 measurements will be found in the Appendix, to which the 

 reader is referred. 



For ordinary purposes a knotted cord or tape-line may 

 be used. In measuring a simple figure, as a square field, 

 nothing is necessary but to measure the length and the 

 breadth, which, multiplied together, will give the superficial 



