THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



303 



IRRIGATION IN THE EAST AND SOUTH 



By GEO. J. SCHARSCHUG 



The irrigation pump house on tl 

 pump delivers an 8-inch stream agai 



FARMERS in the Delaware valley in New Jersey 

 are urging their Congressmen to seek a govern- 

 ment appropriation for the construction of an irri- 

 gation system. 



The next session of Congress is likely to wit- 

 ness the introduction of a number of measures 

 proposing federal aid for irrigation projects in vari- 

 ous sections of the rain belt. 



Severe droughts, which have prevailed this year 

 in many of the best trucking, fruit growing and 

 farming sections of the 

 East and South, have 

 aroused the agricul- 

 turists of these sec- 

 tions to the possibilities 

 yes, necessity of ir- 

 rigation, if they desire 

 to obtain maximum 

 crops from their lands. 

 The old cry of the 

 rain belt farmer that 

 "water out of a ditch 

 ain't like that that falls 

 from the heavens" is 

 being forgotten. 



The Eastern grow- 

 ers are rapidy coming 

 to realize that rain is a 

 fine thing when it 

 falls; but if good crops 

 are to be grown they 



must have water and the crops will not discrimi- 

 nate as to whether the water comes from the skies 

 or out of a ditch. 



More private irrigation systems, none of them 

 extensive, it is true, have been constructed in the 

 East and South this year than ever before. Several 

 projects covering big garden truck and fruit areas in 

 Kentucky, Indiana and Iowa are being planned and 

 work on these will probably begin this fall. A num- 

 ber of prominent growers from various parts of the 

 East and South have been in the West studying 

 irrigation methods and systems. The government 

 has sent trained irrigation experts into the South to 

 teach the farmers the value of irrigation water and 

 how to develop and use it. A twenty-acre govern- 

 ment irrigation demonstration farm has been estab- 

 lished near Selma. Alabama. 



Xewspapers throughout the East and South 

 have begun advocating actively through editorials 

 the establishment of irrigation systems. 



"Put the untold millions upon millions of gal- 

 lons of water now going to waste each year to 

 work," is their battle cry. 



And with crop after crop being totally de- 

 stroyed or seriously damaged by the drouths, the 

 farmers are becoming thoroughly aroused to need 

 of "irrigation insurance." 



The irrigation agitation in the East and South 

 has only begun. It will result in the installation 

 of a number of plants this fall, and more next sum- 



The- above cnt was made from a photosmuli taken for tlie Ameriean Well Worts of 

 Aurora. Ill 



e poor farm at McCook, Neb. The 

 nst a 90-foot head. 



mer if there are conditions of drouth. If next sum- 

 mer proves a season of sufficient rainfall, many pro- 

 posed projects and systems will be delayed or com- 

 pletely forgotten for a time. 



Meanwhile the men who have irrigation systems 

 will continue as they have been doing this year to dem- 

 onstrate the feasibility and value of "artificial water- 

 ing," and other farmers will take it up. They are bound 

 to do so, because it means dollars in their pockets. 

 Two years more of. such conditions 'as have 



been experienced in 

 many sections this year 

 will mean the installa- 

 tion of irrigation plants 

 on some of the farms 

 and in some of the or- 

 chards in practically 

 every county east of 

 the one hundredth me- 

 ridian. 



The possibility of 

 the United States being 

 an irrigated land from 

 the Atlantic to the Pa- 

 cific and from Canada 

 to the Gulf within the 

 next two decades is a 

 dream that is likely to 

 be realized. It is a 

 dream that if realized 

 will mean billions of 



added wealth to the nation, and is perhaps the only 

 certain and effective method of cutting down the 

 present high cost of living. 



Irrigation in the East and South can be estab- 

 lished with far less difficulty than in many sections 

 of the West. In every one of these states the 

 supply of water either on the surface or close to 

 the surface is very large. There is hardly a farm 

 which has not within its own limits either wells or 

 springs from which pumps or hydraulic rams could 

 take sufficient water to absolutely insure the crops 

 against drouth. Then there are the vast numbers 

 of rivers, creeks and ponds, all filled with life-giving 

 water, which can be taken out either by gravity or 

 pumping systems. 



Such development costs money, but so does 

 any other farm improvement, and the farmers are 

 beginning to realize that they cannot buy any better 

 insurance than an irrigation system, even though 

 they do not have to use it more than once or twice 

 in a season. Its insurance value must appeal to 

 them, but there is another feature about irrigation 

 in these areas which compels their attention 

 the increased value of crops where irrigation waters 

 'are used to augment the natural rainfall. This is 

 especially true where intensified truck farming or 

 fruit growing is practiced. 



A sub-irrigated farm in Florida, part in truck 

 and part in fruit, sold recently for $3,200 an acre. 

 It paid about 25 per cent gross profit on this invest- 

 ment last year. 



(Continued on page 308.) 



