54 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



early this month and submitted their plans. The 

 storage reservoir of the project will be built across 

 the Colorado line, but the land to be redeemed, 

 amounting to nearly 100,000 acres, lies entirely in 

 San Juan county, Utah. As the project is to be 

 undertaken under the Carey Act the state land 

 board must pass on it before work can proceed. 



The Secretary of the Interior has granted the 

 application of the Rio Virgin Fruit Lands Company 

 for an irrigation canal and reservoir site in Wash- 

 ington county. The project when completed will 

 reclaim several thousand acres of arid land in south 

 Utah and northern Arizona. 



Articles of incorporation have been filed by 

 the West Bench Irrigation Company of Duchesne, 

 Utah, capital stock $2,700, in shares of $1 each. 



The citizens of Yuma, Arizona, celebrated the 

 completion of the Yuma siphon early this month. 

 The Yuma siphon is a concrete tunnel fourteen feet in 

 diameter and nearly 1,000 feet in length. It is forty 

 feet below the bed of the Colorado river and over 

 one year was required for its construction. The 

 irrigation water direct from Laguna dam reaches 

 the siphon by means of a mammoth canal, falls 

 down the shaft of the intake on the California bank 

 of the Colorado river and rushing through the tun- 

 nel, bubbles up through the shaft of the outlet on 

 the Arizona bank and on to its work of reclamation 

 in the valley below. 



L. R. Moore of Kansas City, Mo., has recently 

 purchased 990 acres of land near Garden City, Kan., 

 and same will be put under cultivation at once. The 

 purchase price of the property was approximately 

 $50,000. Pumping plants will be established on the 

 land, a large part of which will be sowed to alfalfa. 

 Sweet clover will also be planted on the land, 80 

 bushels of seed have been purchased by Mr. Moore. 



Articles of incorporation have been filed by the 

 Belknap Canal and Irrigation Company of Chinook. 

 The new firm will deal in real estate and will also 

 construct flumes and open canals for the purpose of 

 affording better water accommodations to the coun- 

 try in the vicinity of Chinook. The company is 

 capitalized at $20,000, divided into 10,000 shares at 

 $2 per share. L. V. Bogy, C. R. Reser, J. E. Paxton, 

 Henry Kremer and Wm. Skeller, all of Chinook, are 

 directors of the company. 



P. J. Morgan of Salt Lake City, has filed suit 

 in the United States district court asking for judg- 

 ment of $83,807.24, with legal interest from May 9 

 of this year, against the Pacific Reclamation Com- 

 pany, in payment for the construction of the Bishop 

 Creek dam, located twelve miles north of Elko, 

 Nevada. The complaint alleges that the above sum 

 was the contract price for the dam to be payable on 

 completion of the work. It is further alleged that 

 the work was finished on May 12 and that the recla- 

 mation contract has shown no inclination to settle. 

 . An application filed with the state board of 

 irrigation by the Frenchman Valley Irrigation Com- 

 pany of Culbertson, Nebraska, asks for the ris'ht 

 to construct a reservoir near Waunete with 15.000 

 acre feet capacity and to take water from the river 

 for storage there. It is estimated that the project 

 will cost $70,000. 



A SOIL CONDITION. 



Soil conditions are the prime requisites to suc- 

 cessful agriculture, and the proper conditions are 

 not all the same for all kinds of crops. A soil par- 

 ticularly adapted to one kind of crop may be wholly 

 inadequate for others. The soil in proper condition 

 for whatever crop to be grown must contain the ab- 

 solutely necessary ingredient, moisture. 



The moisture of the soil which is available for 

 plant growth is known as free moisture, or that 

 which is apparent. This moisture or water dissolves 

 the salts of the soil and is taken into the plant roots 

 to be used in the growth of the plant. This mois- 

 ture is absorbed from the soil and by the capillary 

 action follows along the minute tube that extends 

 up the stem of the plant and out to the leaves where 

 the moisture is evaporated. This process is contin- 

 uous and at the same time the growth of the plant 

 is increased. We see that there must be some ra- 

 tio between the amount of moisture absorbed by the 

 plant and the increased growth produced. 



Many experiments have been made upon differ- 

 ent kinds of farm crops and the amount of water 

 required to produce a pound of dry matter varies 

 between wide limits. These tests indicate that 

 200 pounds of water will be necessary to produce a 

 pound of dry matter, while in other cases as high 

 as 800 or 900 pounds will be necessary. 



This great variation is due to the climatic con- 

 ditions, locality, kind of crop, and kind of soil. In 

 the humid regions less water is required than in the 

 arid country, and this fact partly explains why a 

 greater amount of water must be held in the soil 

 in our irrigated districts of the west. Wheat, in all 

 probability, will require less water per pound of 

 dry matter than oats, and alfalfa will require more 

 than oats. 



If we assume that an average crop requires 400 

 pounds of water to produce one pound of dry mat- 

 ter and in the case of alfalfa, which produced 4 tons 

 per acre for the season, will require for the above 

 average about 51,200 cubic feet of water, or a depth 

 of a little over 14 inches over the entire acre, or 

 1.175 acre feet. This amount of water must be held 

 in the soil particles as free water available for the 

 plant growth. A good soil must be of such a na- 

 ture as to act as a reservoir and at the same time 

 supply the necessary chemical constituents to the 

 plant. R. L. Parshall, Colorado Agricultural Col- 

 lege, Fort Collins. 



(Continued from Page 47.) 



side of the wheel. Spoke holes are counter-sunk 

 in the tires. They are headed and shouldered in 

 the hubs. 



Davenport wheels are the strongest wheels 

 ever put on a wagon. No split felloes or cracked 

 hubs, no repair bills to pay. 



You know what roller bearings mean in the 

 way of reducing draft on other machines. The steel 

 roller bearings in the Davenport reduce the draft 

 thirty to fifty per cent. 



In the Davenport you get the combination so 

 hard to find in wagons and other machinery for the 1 

 semi-arid region, strength, durability and light draft. 



