370 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



with him, and one of them when writing for the third or 

 fourth time burst into poetry and wrote at the head of her 

 letter : 



"Oh, had I the wings of an eagle, 

 How soon would I fly to Idaho." 



And Peter had to just sit down and write her that he 

 did not want her because he had picked out one that he 

 liked better. And that is just what I had to write some 

 of those manufacturers in regard to their pumps. 



When I sent the drawings and descriptions of my 

 simple device for taking in muck continuously and keeping 

 put stones to the jobbers they wrote back : "Your sketch 

 is perfectly clear to us, and we must say that you have 

 displayed great ingenuity in the installation of your pump." 

 Which is perhaps true of my present device, but in look- 

 ing back at some of the arrangements that I at first tried 

 or experimented with I am now surprised at the ignorance 

 I displayed, and if I finally succeeded in inventing a de- 

 vice that deserves commendation it is not due to any dis- 

 play of genius, but rather to the fact that after much 

 experimenting there was finally nothing left to devise but 

 something that would be simple, practical and efficient. 



A description of this arrangement will no doubt seem 

 as dry as a soda cracker sandwich with a smoked herring 

 in it, but I assure you that there is nothing dry about it 

 when in operation. It consists of a water-tight box with 

 a lid on it, placed on the lake bottom, anywhere in_j*' 

 lake where it is far enough out to be clear from the beach 

 sand and where the muck is deep enough, and connected 

 with the pump on the beach with submerged pipes resting 

 on the lake bottom. A short stub of pipe projects out of 

 the top of the box and to this is attached an elbow, and 

 to the elbow is attached a wooden pipe in short sections, 

 and at the end of the wooden pipe is another elbow and to 

 that is attached the intake pipe. The point of the intake 

 pipe can therefore be lowered or raised, adjusting it to any 

 depth of muck by swinging it on its elbow. The "wooden 

 pipe can at the same time be swung forward in a circle 

 around the box as the muck is being cleaned up. When 

 one circle has been completed another short section of the 

 wooden pipe is inserted, when it is ready to swing around 

 again, increasing the diameter of the hole. A raft is 

 fastened to the pipes above the intake, the pipes holding the 

 raft in position and the raft supporting the pipes at a 

 proper depth. The wooden pipe is kept level and sub- 

 merged a few inches. As movable joints are apt to leak 

 a little the whole suction arrangement is submerged, either 

 resting on the lake bottom or suspended near the surface. 

 While a centrifugal pump is not particular as to what it 

 drinks it is very sensitive to air. It will pump bullheads all 

 right if they hold their breath until they pass the pump, 

 but it is best to not experiment with devices that are likely 

 to give the pump air. 



A man works on the raft helping the soft muck to 

 get started with a mortar mixer's hoe and keeping the 

 intake pipe adjusted to the right depth and swinging it 

 forward. There is no screen to clog with weeds. Stones 

 that might do damage to the pump are caught by gravity 

 in the catch box, from which they can be removed by re- 

 moving the lid. After running the pump for several days 

 last summer I did not find a single stone in the gravity 

 catch box that could not have passed through the pump. 

 Had the intake found any such stones, however, the gravity 

 box would have caught them. It did catch some sand, and 

 for the first time we found no sand in the ditch at the end 

 of the discharge pipes. 



Chunks of weeds or roots would quite often clog at the 

 end of the 4-inch intake pipe, so that we had to raise it 

 to near the surface and poke a stick into it to loosen them 

 up. But once past the first elbow they never clogged. 

 The centrifugal pump would eat up weeds about as nicely 

 as it would drink clear water. We have pumped besides 

 roots and muck, crabs without killing them and full grown 

 bullheads without breaking their skin and clams with- 

 out cracking their shells. 



The effects of irrigation during a dry spell is like a 

 much needed rain. The muck adds humus or fertility to 

 the soil faster, I think, than it could be applied by two men 

 with two manure spreaders and eight horses, besides ap- 

 plying it where a manure spreader could not be taken 

 without doing damage, and we can pump muck without stint 

 when there is no manure to haul. 



ORCHARD DEVELOPMENT IN IDAHO 



Opportunities for the Small as Well as Large Orchardist. 



While on a recent visit to Idaho the editor of 

 IRRIGATION AGE spent a few days with W. L. Hinds, 

 President, and J. W. Craven, Vice President, of the Twin 

 Falls-Deep Creek Orchard Company of Twin Falls. 



This company was organized a year or two ago with 

 the idea of setting out three or four thousand acres to 

 apples, and subsequently cutting the property into five 

 and ten acre tracts for sale to eastern investors. 



It is a well known fact that in the past many com- 

 panies organized to sell orchard property on the unit 

 plan with similar conditions to those under which the 

 Twin Falls-Deep Creek Orchard Company is operated, 

 have in some instances misrepresented to investors and 

 the prompters have not carried out their plans fully, 

 hence the investment has not paid as well as would other- 

 wise be possible. 



Lateral on Twin Falls-Deep Creek .Orchard Company's Property Near 

 Hollister, Idaho. 



This company, composed of W. L. Hinds, J. W. 

 Craven and E. L. MacVicar, has gone to work system- 

 atically and as is shown in the following letter, set out 

 64,000 trees, with about 9 miles of shade trees for shelter 

 and windbreaks. They have also adopted a plan which 

 has not been followed closely by other companies, i. e., 

 cultivating very carefully between all the rows, and not 

 attempting to put any of the land in their orchard into 

 crop. They have two large Hart-Parr engines with suit- 

 able cultivators to follow between the rows and cultivate 

 the soil thoroughly up to the trees or the small lateral 

 ditch line which extends along each row. 



Another View of Deep Creek Orchard Showing Clean, Well Cultivated 

 Ground Between the Rows. 



Mr. Craven, who is the active head of the organiza- 

 tion, informed the writer that they have already gone 

 over the tract eight or nine times this season and expect 

 to go over it once or twice more. It can, therefore, be 

 seen that the land between the trees will be well culti- 

 vated, and the result should prove extremely profitable 



